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Building Cranium Character – Fostering Fairness

Most parents worry about finding a school with the best academic education for their children. But sometimes we forget that cognitive skills are not the only skills that need to be nurtured beginning at a young age. To help children be successful in school and beyond, it’s equally as important to help them develop social and emotional skills.  This is where character education comes in. Character education helps teach children essential life skills and values that they will carry with them throughout their life.

To help preschool and elementary-aged children understand what it really means to have good character, it’s best to keep it simple. Providing basic explanations and examples of what each trait looks like in their day-to-day life is key. One important element of our character is fairness. Let your child know that being fair means treating people equally, honestly and with respect. Fairness also means playing by the rules, taking turns, and not playing favorites. Here are some simple ways to help teach your child how to be fair:

Be a Role Model

Your children are constantly observing you and modeling their behavior after yours. To create a positive influence on your children, try being fair to everyone – your spouse, strangers, waiters, cashiers, etc. As your children see you being fair to everyone, they will learn that fairness is not reserved for only one certain type of person. Your children will benefit from the example you set for them as they begin imitating your fair behavior and speech.

Use Relatable Examples

Children’s books and movies are great tools to use as ways of helping children understand the differences between fair and unfair behaviors. The next time you are watching a movie or reading a book with your child, pause and take a minute to explain the situation unfolding before them. You can ask your child what they think the characters did that was fair, or what they did that was unfair. Movies and books are great teaching tools for fairness because they can make it easier to bring up and discuss important topics with children.

Positively Reinforce Fairness

Recognize your children if and when they exhibit fair behavior in any scenario. If you see them offer another child a turn with their toy or game, that is a reason for praise. If they take responsibility for a mistake they made, let them know they made a fair choice. Make sure that your children know that this kind of behavior makes you proud and that you admire them for it. It’s important to create a link between fairness and positivity so that your children don’t equate fairness with loss or punishment. You can create this link by offering encouragement and praise if/when your children exhibit fairness. Help your children understand that when they are fair in their dealings with others, everyone benefits – including society.

Fostering Fairness at Cranium Academy

At Cranium Academy, we integrate an exclusive character education program into our curriculum. This character education program focuses on building many character traits, one of which is fairness. Using real-world scenarios, character traits are strengthened through creative activities that align with a child’s developing cognitive skills. Our dedicated staff at Cranium Academy understands the importance of character education, striving to help each child build cognitive, social and emotional life skills that they will carry with them as successful students and citizens.

More in the Cranium character series: Responsibility, Generosity, Respect, Caring, and Citizenship

Kicking the Bad Habits: Thumb Sucking

If your child is about to start preschool or daycare, it’s time to start breaking some of their bad habits. In this series, we will cover some tactics that will help you kick those bad habits to the curb. Today’s bad habit is thumb and finger sucking.  

During infancy, thumb and finger sucking is a completely normal way for children to soothe and entertain themselves. However, past toddlerhood thumb sucking can become one of the worst habits for your child. Not only can it be the source of teasing around age 5, but it can also leave permanent damage to their jaw shape, teeth, and speech. To nip this bad habit in the bud, try applying the following tips:

Talk it Out

Explain to your child why thumb sucking is a bad habit, such as how it can start making his teeth look funny. Let your child know that when he is ready to stop, you will be there for him.

Set a Limit

To start weaning your child off thumb sucking, you can tell your child that thumb sucking should not be done during the daytime. Limiting thumb sucking to bedtime or naptime is a good way to reduce the amount of thumb sucking your child does on a daily basis.

Praise Good Behavior

For every hour that your child goes without sucking her thumb, you should tell her that you noticed she didn’t suck her thumb and praise her for this good behavior.

Practice Self-Awareness

When you catch your child sucking his thumb, simply ask him ‘Do you know you’re sucking your thumb right now?’ Chances are he will say no because most kids don’t realize when they are sucking their thumbs. By asking him this question every time he sucks his thumb, you are raising his self-awareness.

Replace with Other Activities

You can distract your child from sucking her thumb with a substitute activity, such as a squishy ball or puppets.

Avoid Nagging and Punishing

Nagging or punishing your child and pulling his finger out of his mouth every time you catch him sucking his thumb can backfire on you. This will just make your child want to continue sucking his thumb even more and this will only result in a power struggle.

At Cranium Academy, our goal is to build character and leadership in every student. To provide consistency between school and home life, we work hand-in-hand with parents to help children break their bad habits. If you’re working on kicking the thumb sucking habit, let your child’s teacher know so that we can help you with the process. One less bad habit is one step closer to building good character and being a leader!

More in this series: Hair Pulling, Nose Picking, Nail Biting/Picking