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Showing posts from January, 2017

The Homework Dilemma: How Much Should Parents Get Involved?

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What can teachers do to help parents help their children with homework? Just what kind of parental involvement - and how much involvement - truly helps children with their homework? The most useful stance parents can take, many experts agree, is to be somewhat but not overly involved in homework. The emphasis needs to be on parents' helping children do their homework themselves - not on doing it for them. In an Instructor magazine article "How to Make Parents Your Homework Partners," study-skills consultant Judy Dodge maintains that involving students in homework is largely the teacher's job, yet parents can help by "creating a home environment that's conducive to kids getting their homework done." Children who spend more time on homework, on average, do better academically than children who don't, and the academic benefits of homework increase in the upper grades, according to Helping Your Child With Homework , a handbook by the Office of Educati

Why My Child Chews on Pencils and Sucks on Clothing?

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This post contains information regarding oral sensitivities and oral defensiveness. Affiliate links are included for your convenience. If you have a child who is constantly sucking on their shirts or clothing, chews on their pencils at school, enjoys extreme flavors of foods, or is constantly chewing on their toys, it could be a sign that their sensory receptors are in need of that tactile sensation in their mouth and are using it as a defense mechanism. Depending on your child, the sensory receptors in their mouth can either be hypersensitive (too sensitive) to textures and foods or they can be hyposensitive (needs more tactile sensations). Oral Hypersensitivity   If your child struggles with eating certain foods at family gatherings or tends to gag when eating, it could be a sign of oral sensitivities that their sensory receptors are sensitive to different textures. Here are some signs you may see if your child has oral hypersensitivities: Avoids certain textures of foods Is a