Tips on Motivating your child in Public Speaking

When I look at my kids I see the vastness of their individuality, which sometimes baffles me actually, given that they have the same genetic mish mash, more or less same environment and same physical and mental support systems. And yet they all have their strong and weak points.

In some families, talking itself starts late. I read somewhere that is a family trait thing, and I see this to be true in 4 of my 6 kids. What I also notice is that the two who spoke early are more verbal and appear to have a more confident outlook. That's not to say the quieter ones don't have their own virtues, some that greatly outshine the other siblings. The four kids started speaking well after the age of three and continue to struggle with complicated and long sentences.

In the beginning, I was worried that this may be some form of learning disability, but time proved that some kids just naturally pick up later than others and have their own developmental pace. But the fact that they hit all other major milestones on schedule further calmed my frayed nerves. It becomes distressful if other milestones are also greatly lacking, in which case it is best to get it checked out.

I am in shape; round IS a shape

We are the generation of ironic behavior. Don't we all keep telling each other that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes, it lies in the eyes of the beholder and one should be beautiful from inside and not outside? Yet, we are the ones who pass judgments on others who are not the same dress size as us.

I won’t deny it; I often find myself a victim of such brain conditioning as well. Suffice to say, we are our best enemies and our worst nightmares.

How to Motivate You Child into Becoming an Avid Learner

How many times have I had to remind my kids that they had tests and assignments and that they should not squander their time away on pointless things like sports, cartoons and games? Too many to recall I'm afraid and with little success I might add. And let's be real, to a child those are not pointless activities at all. In fact what kids learn in play hold no parallel to rote learning. This got me to thinking how I could bring about a revolution of sorts and have them pester me about helping them with their school work instead of it being the other way around.

It's a bumpy ride, but with enough persistence, I just about pulled it off and here's how:

Fitness, Food and Foolishness

Everyone has their own opinions and ideas about fitness. For most it’s either a way to quickly loose the extra accumulated pounds or a dream that they wish would come true. 

For me Fitness is Life.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no skinny looking, gym going, dieting till I die kind of a person.

I am a Fitness trainer.

I was on the healthier side of life since the day I opened my eyes in this world. Belonging to a Pakistani family, it was common for kids my age to be stuffed with baby food by their mothers. To date, a lot of families have the same concept, if your child doesn’t have cheeks till the floor, then you are a major fail as a mother.

Little do they know, obesity at a young age is a major cause of many physical and psychological issues in adulthood.

Growing up I realized how people judged you on basis of weight and eating habits.

Pregnancy and child birth showed me how your life changes with the change in numbers on the weighing scale and my constant effort to stay fit made me fall in love with fitness itself.

What initially started off as a self corrective exercise regime; soon turned into a major hurricane and changed me for good, inside and out. Miraculously, all those hours of playing baseball and taekwondo during school days paid off years after and I decided to take up Fitness Training as a preferred profession.

My definition of fitness isn't to have 6 pack abs or 16 inch waist. If you are able to run around with your kids with ease, do the house chores without back ache or climb stairs without falling down, then you are definitely fit.

Always remember, real women have curves and real men don’t look twice towards sticks.

Fitness is a life style. A way of living, that needs to be adopted and accepted whole heartedly.  The worst you can do to your body is to spoil it with food then deprive it for days at end, only to revert back to old habits.

There is one simple rule you should always bear in mind:

'Bite only what you can chew'

Too much and you will lose interest quickly. Too little and you will most definitely feel de-motivated.

Remember, moderation is the key here.

Our modern lifestyle has made us lazy. Cars have thrown walking habits out the window. Our kids prefer to play games on tablets rather than physically getting tired.

The other day I took my kids out to the park so they could get fresh air and exercise.  My 6 year old, not being used to hot weather got upset because he was sweating.

Though it did make me laugh at his innocence, it also proved to be an eye opener. Spoiling our kids with technology may seem like the best show of love for now, but in the long run we will regret making then physically incapable of facing challenges of youth and age.

My advice is that in order to have a successful fitness regime, you must first analyze your life style and then devise a routine that suits you the best without it turning into a burden in the long run.

We often discuss how our mothers and grandmothers were able to not only produce a dozen kids, but also perform physically challenging tasks with ease. Don’t we all blame our lack of physical strength on artificial and unhealthy foods these days?

In my opinion, this fault finding and blame game is completely unnecessary.  There are always two choices in any situation and one of them is always right.

What we choose to do to our health is in our own hands. The best way to stay fit is to have consistency in your daily life style and a promise to do it not because of what people will say, but because it makes you happy.

In this age of social media we come across various diet plans on a daily basis. Some based on so called chemical (crash) diets while others suggest concoctions of fruits and vegetables.

A very popular line comes to mind here

 ‘Use but don’t abuse’

It’s true that food plays a major role in our well being but when healthy nutrition is replaced with extremely unbalanced diets, the results are most certainly nothing but dangerous.