What type of parent are you? Do you ever wonder how your parenting style is impacting your child/children?

By looking at recent research from Professor Mark Cummings of the University of Notre Dame, you can see how your parenting style is impacting your child’s school performance and behavior.

Cummings research classified three different parenting styles: cohesive, enmeshed, and disengaged. Read on to find out what style you embody.
 
COHESIVE PARENTING

You are raising your child in a cohesive family if you are: responsive, warm, consistent, and flexible. If your family typically works well together with harmonious interactions you are likely using a cohesive style of parenting.

How does this impact children in school?

According to Cummings, "coming from a cohesive family, in which members tend to be warm and responsive to one another, where problems are resolved, and members cope well, increases the likelihood of children doing well in school." 

ENMESHED PARENTING

You are using an enmeshed style of parenting if you are over involved and intrusive in your child’s life, display some emotional warmth but also display hostility. The outcome of this style of parenting is a lack of family unity.

How does this impact children in school?
 
Children from these families enter school with a similar emotional concept as students from cohesive families; however, Cummings research found that over time these students are more susceptible to feelings of anxiety, depression, social withdrawal, and loneliness.

DISENGAGED PARENTING

You are using a disengaged parenting style if you uninvolved and unresponsive to your children. These parents are cold, controlling, avoid problems, and are withdrawn from their children.

How does this impact children in school?

Children coming from disengaged homes typically have the most problems in school. Researchers found that these children begin school with higher levels of aggressive and disruptive behavior. These students also have a difficult time focusing in class and obeying class rules.

Cummings explained, "they often start school with more disruptive behavior and higher levels of aggression and difficulty cooperating."

Clearly it is important for parents to strive for a cohesive parenting style to maximize the success of their child in school and social relationships.

To read more of the research visit:

Behavior Problems in School Linked to Two Types of Families

Children's School Performance Tied to Family 'Type'

A few weeks ago we had a one week series titled: “Celebrating Dyslexia.” Originally it was only going to be a one week series, but today I decided I don’t want to stop “celebrating dyslexia” thus as I discover more impressive stories of dyslexics the series will continue.

"It's unfair because often people who have disabilities - visual or hearing or wherever it is - they can very often excel in other things and it's a matter of finding those things,” said actor Charley Boorman when discussing his dyslexia in a recent interview with BBC News. 

Watching his video interview with BBC News, you would never believe charismatic, confident Charley Boorman remembers his early teachers making statements such as: “you’re thick and you’ll not amount to much.”

The most impressive quality about Boorman is the fact that he grew up with teachers taking jabs at his self-esteem, and he didn’t let those comments determine his potential.

I think that too often dyslexics decide that reading skills are the only ability that matters. It is undoubtedly a valuable skill, and one that they can improve; however, dyslexics can greatly improve their self esteem by focusing on their many strengths.

From the interview I got the impression that Boorman always knew he had strengths. He discussed that he spent a lot of time defending his abilities to his teachers. His words did not include the word “defending,” however I think it captures what he was doing. 

"At the time when I was going to school in Ireland people didn't really have a clue about what it was, so I had to spend a lot of my time trying to explain to teachers what dyslexia meant."

Why did he want his teachers to know what dyslexia meant? I think it’s because he saw his own self worth. He knew exactly why he struggled in school. He knew he wasn’t stupid or incapable and he wanted his teachers to understand that. In his own words: "That was the kind of battle I had. I knew what I had, but my teachers didn't."

That is why he has become a success: despite opposition, he has confidence in his own abilities. He acknowledges that he had a difficult time in school; he acknowledges that reading is difficult for him. But he also acknowledges that he has many strengths.

Maybe his teachers didn’t see those strengths when he was a child, but by continuously focusing on those strengths he has become living proof to his teachers that he does have self-worth and valuable abilities.

Read more inspiring stories about dyslexics:

"4 INSPIRING Stories of Dyslexics"

"Orlando Bloom THRIVES by Embracing his Dyslexia"

The full article and a video clip of the interview can be found on BBC News: “Charley Boorman on a Childhood Spent with Dyslexia”

Guest blog post from, The Genius in Children: A Blog by Educator Rick Ackerly

One day the mother of a third grader asked:

“How do you feel about bribery?”

“What’s the situation?” I replied.

“My daughter is reading already. In fact she loves to read, but she only reads what she likes to read.”

I was speechless for a second with three thoughts fighting to come out all at once. I finally said, “First, she’s in good company. Most of us only read what we want. Secondly, declare victory; she’s reading. Thirdly, don’t bribe…”

“I wasn’t thinking money or candy or anything like that,” she broke in. “I was thinking of something like, ‘if you read 30 minutes per night every day this week, I will take you to the zoo on Saturday.’ Or something like that.”

“It might work. Bribery works, all right. The problem is the negative side effects—chief among them that extrinsic rewards undermine intrinsic reward. Research shows that if I pay you to do something you love, you tend not to do it for love anymore.”

“But the school even tells us that children should read half-an-hour each night, that it is important for increasing reading proficiency, vocabulary development, and all those good things.”

“Sure. Reading every day is a good thing, and since you have taken a stand with your daughter already, maybe it is a good idea to follow through. But don’t bribe. You could turn something she enjoys into something she hates. Also, you risk turning something that she owns into something that you own. If you take responsibility for it, she will give up her responsibility for it to you.

“Instead, figure out how to make it fun. Be creative. Like maybe establish a time every night when you read together. You could keep finding new material that you think she will like. ‘Hey, here’s an article on horses I saw in this magazine.’ And then start reading it to her. At a critical point in the reading you might have to stop reading and go prepare dinner or something, leaving her with the magazine and the internal need to keep reading on her own.

“Rather than bribery, build your relationship. Establish a habit of reading together–the same book, or you could each have your own. Once you have a ritual that she loves—a way of being with Mom and only Mom—you will find that this 30 minutes together turns into all sorts of good things. As time goes on, if this mother-daughter time becomes sacred, she will use it for other important things: a time when she confides in you, a time when she asks you about something that has been really bothering her but was afraid to bring it up.”

In this conversation I learned that most mothers know all of this. They just need to be given permission by an educator to do what their instincts are telling them is right. She didn’t like bribery. She didn’t like making her daughter read. But fear that her daughter might somehow “fall behind” on the conveyor belt toward “academic achievement,” and wanting to do the right thing was driving her to go against her instincts.

Hey, everybody, we have to keep reading and other measures of academic progress in perspective. Reading is important, but it is not the most important thing in the world. Our relationship with our children is. If your child is already reading and enjoying it; build on that. Have fun with it. If they are not, have fun with it anyway–read to them and be playful. How soon and how fast and how much they read is not critical. It is more important that they love reading. Don’t make them hate it.

This article was originally published on RickAckerly.com –a blog titled: “The Genius in Children,” written by Rick Ackerly. Ackerly is a nationally recognized educator and speaker, and principal at Children’s Day School, an independent school in San Francisco serving children in preschool through eighth grade. For more of his expert advice, visit http://rickackerly.com/ today!

Through this job I have gained a lot of sympathy for anyone learning to read. The English language is not the most straight-forward langauge. It has to be overwhelmingly and difficult to remember all the rules for each letter and sound, especially when those rules often contradict other rules. It is truly amazing what our brains are capable of retaining the rules of language and that anyone can learn to read.

In a recent article from Science Daily titled: "Reading to Kids a Crucial Tool in English Language Development," George Georgiou, an educational psychology professor at the University of Alberta, discussed the importance of parents reading to their children. The article brought up three important benefits of reading aloud to children:

1. Reading to a child is a positive activity which helps strengthen the bond between a parent and a child.

2. Reading to a child teaches a child that the parent values reading and creates positive reinforcement for the child to enjoy and engage in reading.

3. Reading to a child increases a child’s understanding of the rules and sounds in the English language.

The rest of this post will focus on the third benefit: reading to a child increases a child’s understanding of the rules and sounds in the English language. This concept is called orthography, the study of the letters and spelling in a language. English is a difficult language to learn because it does not have consistent rules of orthography. The rules of the English language allow letters to have multiple sounds, unlike some of the other languages. For example, Greek and Finnish only have one sound for each letter and are thus much easier to learn. The importance of reading aloud to children learning the English language is a result of this concept. Reading to children helps them learn the various sounds and language rules of the English language. Georgiou makes the following points about reading aloud to children:

"We have found that in English, you need a rich home literacy environment. It's absolutely necessary."

"In English, having someone read to you frequently as a child- explaining what the meaning of words are and playing around with the letters- makes a big difference as to whether you will become a good reader."

Read with your child today to provide your child with these 3 benefits!

Today is “Summer Learning Day” sponsored by the National Summer Learning Association. To celebrate Summer Learning Day, Reading Horizons is encouraging parents to read with their kids to encourage the development of effective reading skills in their children, especially children that struggle with reading. We would also like to encourage our customers to find the time to have their children work on Reading Horizons program to encourage and promote the reading skills of struggling readers.

Improving the reading skills of struggling readers through the use of Reading Horizons reading program, embodies the ideals of Summer Learning Day in the following ways:

1. Maintain and advance participants' academic and developmental growth

Reading Horizons works to promote users academic and developmental growth by providing struggling readers with a means to overcome their difficulty. As students progress through school their academic growth and success becomes more and more dependent on effective literacy skills. Reading Horizons works to ensure that all students have the opportunity to learn the foundational skills that promote successful reading and eventually a successful education.

2. Support working families

Reading Horizons supports working families by offering a software component which allows students to work through the program entirely on their own. This allows students to improve their reading skills without the direct supervision of their parents. The software can be used by the child under the supervision of any caretaker. The reading program also supports working families with its low cost. Reading Horizons is a cheaper alternative to learning centers and tutors.

3. Keep children safe and healthy

Reading Horizons helps keep children safe and healthy by promoting the development of literacy. Studies have found that 68% of 4th grade students read below grade level and if these students fail to catch up they are at greater risk for: truancy, dropping out of school, juvenile delinquency, substance abuse and teenage pregnancy. Reading Horizons helps prevent the negative consequences of illiteracy by offering reading intervention for struggling readers.

4. Send young people back to school ready to learn

Reading Horizons sends students back to school ready to learn by helping them improve reading skills over the summer. Diligent users of Reading Horizons can improve 2-5 reading levels in 3-6 months with the program. This allows struggling readers to return to school closer to the reading level of their peers and ready to learn new material instead of focusing on relearning skills from the previous school year.

Reading Horizons reading program for struggling readers-->