Tag: Tips

Guest Post: How to Greatly Improve Interactions with Your Children


This is a guest post by Melissa McDonald, a wife, mother of 2 girls (3 years old & 1 1/2 year old), and teacher. In her blog, she tries to show how parenting and teaching work together.

And again since this blog is all about randomness, I shall accept the topic of parenting.

I recently listened to Tina Fey’s book, Bossypants on my Audible.com app. I loved it!

One of my favorite parts was when she talked about getting her start in improv. She then shared “Tina Fey’s Rules of Improvisation That Will Change Your Life and Reduce Belly Fat* (*Improv will not reduce belly fat.)”

As I was listening, I thought about some of the parents I’ve worked with over the years who really struggled to talk with their kids. This list would be a fun way to give parents suggestions on how to improve interactions with their children.

Always agree and say, “Yes.”

This one is pretty simple.

Example:

  • Kid – “Do you want to build with the Legos with me?”
  • Parent – “Yes.” (You will not always be able to do this.)

Not only say, “Yes” but “Yes, and.”

Add to the previous comment and contribute to the conversation.

Example:

  • Parent – “I think I will build a house. What are you going to build?

Make statements.

Don’t ask questions all the time. Talk about what you are doing and make observations about what your child is doing. Example:

  • Kid – “I’m building a farm.”
  • Parent – “That’s a great idea. Maybe the house I’m building could be where the farmer lives.”
  • Kid – “Yeah. I’m going to build a fence too.”

There are no mistakes, only opportunities.
You might make a suggestion or observation that does not sit well with your child. Just keep going and try something else. Example:

  • Parent – “Cool! I’ll put the house right here inside the fence.”
  • Kid – “No! The fence is just for the animals.”
  • Parent – “Ok. So I’ll move the house outside of the fence. Hmmm….where is a good place to put it?”

Just like improv, parenting gives us plenty of opportunities to laugh.  Melissa 🙂  I highly recommend that you read Tina Fey’s Rules of Improvisation That Will Change Your Life and Help Lose Body Fat*

This is a scheduled post. By now, I am currently in school, staring directly at the teacher pretending to listen intently but actually my mind is drifting off to this post. Your comments cannot be approved until Saturday. If you’re kind enough, make me happy by commenting or liking this post and visiting Melissa McDonald’s site.

5 Strict Precautions I Take on Facebook


ON WATCHING VIDEOS :

1. NEVER wear headphones and turn the volume down. You never know, maybe a jumpscare is hidden somewhere in that video.

2. Read the comments first to inform you about the video.

ON READING COMMENTS :

1. NEVER trust and scroll all the way down on long lengthwise photos. Something lurks down there that will give you nightmares.

ON PRIVACY :

1. NEVER accept friend requests from people whose profile pictures are empty.

ON EVERYTHING ELSE :

NEVER  go there in the first place. I am an introvert in the social media world. Don’t mind the irony.

¤AsilandtheKeyboard¤

’15’ Constructive Tips on How To Become A Great Writer You Should Follow


This is a must-read guest post by Sarang Khanna who blogs at Wall of Wonders. He studies software and programming stuff. But what he pursues as a hobby is art and writing, which you can see on his blog.

You better check out his blog or I will never read any of your posts ever again!

Interested in guest posting? Click me.

Writing is something you are not going to be able to avoid in any phase of your life (except if you are lost in a forest with nothing but your clothes on you, in which case I don’t see much need of writing anyways).

So what makes good writers different from not-so-good ones, you ask?

Here are the set of some simple yet elegant regulations which great writers have followed in their texts through centuries.

  1. Don’t ever start your content with pessimism or you will never even in your dreams be able to become a good writer.
  2. Don’t become too optimistic through your texts, lest people start enjoying so much that they abandon other writers completely and start reading only *insert your name here*.
  3. Always, ALWAYS AVOID using capital letters unless it is an abbreviation.
  4. Please do write abbreviations like r.s.v.p., d.i.y. ETC. in upper case.
  5. Using parenthesis for remarks (even if relevant) is not welcome.
  6. Avoid redundancy. Repeating the same thing over and over does not make sense. If I repeat the same thing over and over to you, will it make any sense? No? So avoid redundancy.
  7. Procrastination is a writer’s enemy. I will someday write a post on that too.
  8. The standard is to use only 3, so don’t over-use periods after sentences…………. Okay?
  9. Why put so many question marks after a question???
  10. Always proofread your article for speling and gramer chekks.
  11. Avoid using over-long-phrases-connected-by-hyphens in your text.
  12. Always complete your write-up – Don’t ever leave it incomplete.
Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started