New Year Gifts For Your Child

Wow! What a pleasant wintry yet sunny morning .Reminds me of all the warm winter days I spent reading in the sun when I was in school and in college too. While much is being said about the dwindling reading habits today with the advent of the electronic age, nothing much is being done  to rekindle the tiny spark left -due only to the wonderful reading memories of  us so called oldies,

I would like to once again talk to mothers of younger kids, even the very young ones.I can understand how difficult it is to manage your own career--specially if you are good at it and are passionate about your work-- along with worrying about good habits you want your child to imbibe ,as I was, not too long ago one of you.The habit of reading tops the list of such worries.

My suggested way out -The Tool  :Make children value books first of all.Let your child realize that good books are something to cherish and wish for, as he or she will get one only as a reward for something. The very association of it with a reward attaches a value to it.It is not so difficult to use this tool.In fact most mothers are quite adept at it .The only difference is the rewards of  chocolates,watching TV programmes /movies etc are to be replaced by 'you will get to see   that nice picture book/you will get to hear a read along story from me /you will get a new book and so on. 

A word of caution:   Don't overdo it as the system of reward for everything a child does can very       easily backfire and the reward might get changed to a bribe and offering and receiving something as a bribe can become a habit,doing more harm than good. 

When to start:This strategy works best if you have already created a sense of  awe and wonder
for  watching beautiful pictures and listening to you read along with seeing the book in the child from an age as young as one year.However there is no fixed criteria.Success depends on you ,your patience and your attitude towards books .The harder you will work when the child is young,easier will be 

your task and your life when the child will grow up.

 I can hear minds ticking away and voices saying has she never heard of e-books and audio books and the wonder of watching books and so on?Well I have and used them too ,but I still don't think anything can match the sheer pleasure of holding the real concrete book in ones hands.

Watch this space tomorrow for some of my favourite  and useful books for kids.