₦airaland Forum

It is not uncommon to fall in love with and ultimately marry someone who has already got a child. And whether it is a man who is marrying a woman moving in with a child or it is a woman marrying a man who has already got a child, there can be no real harmony in the family until there is a positive relationship between all family members, particularly between the step-parent and the step-child.

While it is understandable to feel scared and overwhelmed at the prospects of being a step-parent—as step-parents are automatically considered devil, step-parenting can actually be a very rewarding and fulfilling endeavour if you are able to bond with your step-child.

Below are a few suggestions on how to connect with a step-child as a parent.

Give Yourselves Time To Develop Affinity

The sooner you realize that it takes time for love, acceptance and emotional connection to occur and give yourself and your step-child time for this to happen, the better you all will be for it. This is one of the initial mistakes that both step-parents and biological parents make: expecting that the newly arrived step-parent and the step-child will hit it off straightaway and become an inseparable pair as parent and child!

Truth is that depending on the age of the child, it will take between two to ten years or more for true bonding to occur. Evidence gotten from research suggests that children under five years will most likely bond with the step-parent within two years. Older children—teenagers in particular, however, may take many more years to truly connect and bond with you emotionally. So do not expect that your step-child will instantly accept you. Give room to the possibility that they may be indifferent towards you. Over time, as you interact as a family, serving and being of help to one another and gradually create cherished moments together, there will come the time when your step-child will feel truly connected with you enough to accept you fully.

If You Are ‘Replacing’ A Late Biological Parent, Allow Room For The Child To Grieve For And Remember The Parent

When a child has lost their biological parent, they go through a grieving period. If this grieving period is not yet over when you come into their life as a step-parent, it is important you give the child space and time to grieve for and remember the late parent. Unless you allow the child room to grieve and completely get over the pain of losing their biological parent, they will most likely react negatively towards you because in their mind, you have come to take over from and make their late parent inconsequential and wipe clean the memory of them. To minimize the chances of a negative response towards you from the child, you should not be too quick in making sweeping changes, replacing items such as pictures and other household items that bear the trace of the late parent. Rather, you should find ways to help the child remember their parent by listening to stories about the parent, displaying photos of the parent in their room or planning a memorial activity on the parent’s birthday or on the day of their passing.

In The Case Of A Divorce, Allow Children To Keep Their Loyalties And Encourage Contact With The Non-Custodial Biological Parents

If your spouse is a divorcee, and the other biological parent of the child is still living or if the child was born out of wedlock and their other biological parent has been involved in their life up until now, then you must necessarily appreciate the fact that the child would most likely desire to retain the relationship they have with their non-custodial biological parent.

If the child feels even slightly that you are desirous of impeding their relationship with their non-custodial biological parent, your efforts to develop a harmonious relationship with them will suffer greatly, especially if they enjoy their relationship with this parent. So you should encourage the child to maintain their contact with this parent. This way, she wouldn’t see you are as a threat to her relationship with her non-custodial parent but as another parent figure in her life.

On the other hand, if the child enjoys you more than their non-custodial biological parent, they may experience mixed feelings because they fear that liking you somehow means they disapprove of their non-custodial biological parent. So they are torn between accepting you—and allowing their relationship with you to flourish—and maintaining loyalty to their non-custodial biological parent. This state of emotional turmoil may push the child into assuming a hostile and defiant stance towards you on occasions. The best way to help the child work through this emotional turmoil is to allow them the freedom and actively encourage them to remain connected with the non-custodial biological parent. Over time, the child will realize that they can actually have the best of the two worlds—they can enjoy a healthy relationship with both you and their non-custodial biological parent; they don’t have to close up their heart towards one so to have a relationship with the other.

Encourage Your Spouse To Spend Time Alone With The Child From Time To Time

Having lost one parent, the remaining parent is the major source of emotional support that the child has. As such, he will be very dependent on the parent for emotional connection and support. Encouraging your spouse to spend time alone with the child will enhance the emotional well-being of the child and fast-track the healing process, making your integration as a family easier and smoother. So while you would desire to spend as much time with your spouse to enhance the quality of your relationship, you should not always be glued to his side or look to engage all of his attention when you are all together. Look to see that the child and their remaining biological parent have plenty time alone for her to enjoy ‘emotional refreshment’. Once they are emotionally refreshed, once their need for emotional connection has been satisfied, they might be more excited and relaxed about spending time with you. More so, they will not resent you for ‘‘taking up all of daddy’s attention’’

Be Consistently Affectionate To The Child But Let Them Respond To You On Their Own

One of the critical ingredient that will enhance your relationship with your step-child is trust. Trust is a core component is building love between two people and it’s not going to be any different between you and your step-child. As your step-child observes your affectionate actions towards her, such as: paying full attention when she talks with you, keeping confidential information confident, taking genuine interest in what she is doing and what interest her, making efforts and sacrificing for her wellbeing e. t. c., she will most likely eventually open up to develop a workable relationship—and maybe, even a parent-child—relationship with you.

While you do your best to show affections to your step-child, you should allow her the freedom to respond to you at her own pace. Don’t force yourself on her if she remains aloof and cautious. Mostly, this disposition is a representation of a child’s confusion over their new relationship with you and their loss from the past. Eventually, the love you show your step-child will win over and your step-child will hopefully, accept you fully.

Let The Biological Parent Take The Lead With Discipline

One of the areas of difficulty and confusion for you as a new step-parent would be in regards to setting limit, teaching values and enforcing discipline. At the early stage, you lack authority due to a weak—although growing—relationship with your step-child. To make your efforts more productive, you and your spouse—the biological parent—should work as a unified team to enforce discipline in the home.

Firstly, you and your spouse should agree on a set of rules and a code of conduct as well as a system of discipline for your household. Then the biological parent can communicate this to the child.

Secondly, once the code of behavior and the consequent punishment for violation has been agreed upon, your spouse, the biological parent should communicate it to the child and pass power to you, the step-parent for enforcing punishment. If a rule is violated, it is the household’s rule that is violated and not your rule. In the event of such, you will have the authority to execute punishment on the behalf of biological parent of your step-child. Later, when your spouse gets into the picture, they should support the decisions you made with regards to the punishment you meted out—hopefully, it will be in line with the agreed-upon standard for the family—and emphasize their expectations that the child obey the you all the time in the future. Over time, your position with the child will gradually solidify until you have attained the full status of a parent

Written By: Tervel T Kejih'
Founding Coordinator,
Tutorsperexcellence.com

You know those students am talking about. The ones that make it look so easy. The ones that everyone goes to if they are having difficulty understanding a concept. They are the ones that when tests or exams scripts are returned, you see 90% written boldly on the top right side of their script.

The professors love them and it seem as if they—the professors—usually leave them off the hook when grading scripts if they find some minor errors in the their paper!

Yeah, you are right, I am talking about the top students who make it look so easy that everybody wonders how they do it.

Well, the truth is that, beneath the surface, there is a collection of positive habits, attitudes and practices that make these guys stand out. They have committed themselves to practicing these habits over the years so that they have become ingrained in their being and combine to produce such astounding results.

Let’s take a look at them:

(1) They Don’t Use Only Textbooks

Reading textbooks is one way of learning new material but top students don’t just read textbooks, they use textbooks to study more about examples, research around a concept and answer or solve practice problems. Other than this, they use lecture notes, handouts, past exam questions and Google for study material

(2) They Google EVERYTHING

And I mean EVERYTHING! It’s like an automatic reaction. Come across a new concept? Google it straightaway! I don’t know if you are aware of it but there is no one textbook out there that contain as much information as you will find on the internet.

And all you need to do to access this information is just type into the Google search engine. Top students go beyond the textbooks their professors recommend and the example they give in the class or in their handouts and make use of the free massive search engine called ‘‘Google’’ to get more information.

(3) They Test Themselves Frequently

Top students know that each time you test yourself on a material, you strengthen your brain’s connection with the material and as well, receive an immediate and clear feedback on how much of it you know or have assimilated. So you know what they do? They constantly and frequently test themselves in order to accelerate and enhance long-term retention of study materials.

(4) They Study In Short Bursts More Than They Study In Long Marathons

The way the natural activity/rest cycle of our bodies is wired is such that we function effectively up to a point. Beyond that point, the body would need to rest and if we force it to continue to work, our effectiveness progressively diminishes.

So while top students engage in long, marathon study on occasions, they mostly study in short bursts. Aside that this practice dovetails with the natural activity/rest cycle of our bodies, it also helps top students to focus intensely because they know there is at least a short break coming.

(5) They Take Time To Rest Properly

Top students usually carve out a portion of the day when they concentrate and do intense study after which they take time to rest adequately. During the time when they are studying, they create new connections in their brains. When this period is followed by a time of rest and sleep, the gains made by the new connections are fully assimilated. Moreover, the time of rest and sleep refreshes the student and keeps him alert for another time of intense study.

(6) They Make The Best Out Of Every Lecture

They may not like the professor, the course content may be boring or tedious to assimilate, they may hate the venue where the lecture holds,but the top students look to gain as much as they can from each class, from every lecture; they give it their best shot all the same.

They buy the course handout and bring it to class every time, they ask questions during lectures, they look stuff up on Google, they focus on the important practice problems and take note of anything the professor put emphasis on as a potential exam topic. They do all these because they know these will be of invaluable help to them when they sit down to study on their own.

(7) They Learn Expansively

Ok, I know that the tendency for most students is to study just enough to be able to pass with a C and then occasionally, a B. But I am talking about the guys who score A+ on practically every test or exam they write. These guys don’t go for just the basic facts, they go for detail information.

For instance, if they are to remember some details about Mary Slessor’s work in Calabar, top students may go a bit more expansive and study her entire life starting with when and where she was born and how she ended up in Calabar as a Christian missionary.

By going to such greater detail, they build a better framework for understanding the course because now they have more coherent information—as opposed to random facts—which their brain will know better what to do with.

( They Immediately Study Their Assignments and Tests Mistakes

The average students, when they get their test or assignment script back from their professor, look at their score and immediately feel angry that the got such a low grade so they flip through the script to see where the professor made any mistake they can argue about to get additional marks. When they don’t find any, they immediately shove the script into their bag or drawer and never look at it again.

The top students behave differently. When they get their assignment or test script back, they look at it critically focusing solely on what they got wrong with a view of finding out what the right answers are. They consult their lecture notes and handout to confirm what the right answers are for the questions they failed. They use their mistakes as indicators of what they need to improve on before the main exam.

(9) They Don’t Wait For Motivation To Strike

There are always occasions when every student don’t feel like studying or undertaking any academic task. There are many times when a student don’t feel motivated to do anything. But top students know that studying for a degree—and for that matter, staying on top requires persistence, tenacity and consistency.

So whether they feel motivated or not…whether they feel like studying or not, they stay up and do it anyway. They don’t wait for when motivation will strike, they study all the time, even on their worst days, when undertaking academic work is the last thing they would like to do.

(10) They Practice Under Test Conditions

You know there is an old adage that says “practice makes perfect”. But I think it not totally true. I think that ‘‘practice makes for improvement’’ and ‘‘practicing under the right conditions makes perfect’’! Deliberately simulating the right conditions and practicing under them is more likely to boost your chances of success. And this is what top students do.

Instead of merely reading through their lecture notes and past test questions, they make themselves practice answering questions similar to what they will find in the exam, under conditions similar to those of the exam as well as under time pressure.

(11) They Use Past Exams and Tests Questions

You see, professor usually have a lot of work on their hands. They have to develop lecture materials, teach classes, grade exams, attend departmental and committee meetings, conduct research, present papers at different fora, do consulting work and generally handle all sorts of responsibilities.

So they don’t always have time to come up with new and different questions for CA tests and semester exams. As a result, many of them rehearse their CA tests and semester exam questions from year to year. Because of this, past CA tests and semester exam questions can be a huge help in enabling you prepare for tests and exams. Top students know this and take full advantage of it.

(12) They Take Personal Responsibility For Their Success

The top students work with the mindset that they and only they are truly responsible for their success in school. You may have good, committed professors but if you expect them to spoon-feed you without you committing to working hard, then you are going to end up as one of the also-ran.

So top students match the commitment of their school with a corresponding passion for diligent work. They know they are solely responsible for their success; there is no committee for that.

Written By: Tervel T Kejih,
Tutorsperexcellence.com

Everyone gets angry sometimes, both adults and children. Every now and then, an unpleasant situation arises provoking a feeling of annoyance or irritation. The emotion of anger range from being merely irritated to being moderately angry all the way to being completely enraged.

And people express their anger in different ways. While there are several people who are easily irritated, and can flare up or become enraged very quickly, teenagers particularly have been found to be a group that show strong tendency towards intense anger and irritability.

Generally, teenagers have difficulty controlling impulses, specifically because they lack anger management skills. Hence, their tendency to get irritated and lose their temper so quickly and so easily. It is often the case that their anger is usually intense and escalates very quickly.

This is because teenagers tend to take everything personally and as a criticism. For instance, if an adult walks to the refrigerator to get a cold drink and finds that the drinks are not cold because the refrigerator was not switched on from the wall socket, they might be just mildly irritated, gulf the drink in the state it is in and then switch on the refrigerator.

A teenager in the same situation may get real angry, stomp around and accuse everyone in the house of being inconsiderate because they did not switch on the refrigerator and now he can’t get a cold drink!

In many instances, the reaction of most parents to the intense anger and irritability of their teenagers falls into one of two categories. They either try to quickly change the situation for their child so that their anger will go away. Or they thunder back at the child and try to quell their anger through intimidation and threats.

The truth however is that none of these two approaches is an effective way of helping your child deal with irritations and annoyances. Neither of the two are effective as far as anger management skills goes. As your child is going to experience situations that will trigger anger throughout life, it is vital that you help him develop the capacity and learn the skills for managing his anger and expressing it appropriately.

Consider the following suggestions to help you give your child the tools to understand anger and deal with it.
Control Your Own Emotions So That Your Child Will Learn From Your Personal Example

More often than not, an attitude of a child frequently and easily getting angry triggers an angry response from a parent especially when the anger is directed at the parent. This is usually because the parent either feels disrespected by the child’s attitude or the parent feels the child is making them look bad—as though they have done a poor job of raising the child.

On the flip side, parents who are uncomfortable with anger may become anxious when their child flies into a rage and may simply give in to what the child wants. Both of these responses are actually a disservice to the child. As a parent, you must stay in control of your emotions and not fire back or cave in to the child while he is yelling.
Help Your Child Recognize When Anger Is Building.

You can help your child recognize when anger is building up as well as the emotional ‘‘hot buttons’’ that trigger his anger. If he can identify what and what makes him angry—even if he is not able to say why—he can begin to develop the capacity for distancing himself from those issues when they arise so that he doesn’t take them personally.

And if he can learn to recognize the physical signs of anger or irritation such feeling of tension, clenching of stomach e. t. c. he might be able to keep his anger from escalating into a rage by learning to keep shut—just go completely silent and if possible, move away from the source of annoyance or irritation—whenever he has started experiencing those feelings.
Brainstorm With Your Child To Identify The ‘Why’ Behind His Anger

Quite a few times when a teenager has raged and screamed, they express remorse for their negative behavior and are actually willing to talk about it. If your child expresses remorse and would like to know how he could avoid such emotional ‘‘meltdowns’’ in the future, if they express willingness to learn to manage their anger better, you can help him work backwards from the incident.

What was said that triggered his anger?

What happened to get him so riled up?

What feelings did he have at the time?

Frustration, embarrassment, ridicule, disappointment, fear?

Did he feel he was being blamed?

Or did he feel he was being an attempt at controlling him?

The next step would be to help him learn how to judge whatever is said to him on its merit—particularly when he doesn’t like it—and not just fly into a rage.
Help Him See That Being Annoyed Is Completely Understandable But Putting Up A Negative Behaviour Because You Are Annoyed Is Wrong

You should help your child understand that the problem is not that he gets annoyed or irritated –or even angry for that matter. The problem is the behavior that follows. Make him aware that there are going to be a lot of circumstances in life that will trigger his anger.

Sometimes they may be rules that limit or behaviour or incidences that frustrate him but unless he manages his anger properly and expresses his disappointment in an appropriate manner, he may suffer grave consequences.

Written By:
Tervel T Kejih,
Founding Coordinator,
Tutorsperexcellence.com - Private Home Tutors
08064015245