By Les Huysmans

For my last post of the year, I though I would put together a ‘best of previous suggestions’ list, which could also function as a great list of resolutions for the New Year! Here we go:

1. Healthy Eating: Encourage your child to try various fruits and vegetables. You can make this fun by preparing a traditional Thai salad with your child, using fresh local ingredients, highlighting the importance of nutritious eating over strict dieting.
2. Organizational Skills: Help your child learn to organize their belongings, starting with small tasks like arranging their school bag or a section of their room. This teaches them the value of order and discipline. For example, setting a weekly time to organize and clean their school bag together.
3. Journaling: Introduce and encourage your child to write in a journal. They can write about their day or draw pictures in a journal every evening. It’s a great way for them to express themselves and develop their writing skills. It can also be a fun family activity where you share stories or observations about your day.
4. Emotional Intelligence: Teach your child the importance of acknowledging and apologizing for their mistakes. This fosters empathy and understanding, vital for their emotional development. As an example, you – as the parent – could set a great example by apologising to your child when you’re wrong, showing them how to gracefully accept and give apologies. I understand that in traditional families in Thailand, the parent-child status situation might make this potentially awkward, but every new generation experiences this less and less, and it sets a great example for your child to follow.
5. Local Exploration: On weekends, consider exploring local Thai neighborhoods and nature spots. It’s a wonderful way to teach your child about their culture and the environment, promoting a sense of community and belonging.
6. Balancing Screen Time: Encourage activities that balance screen time with other interests. Traditional Thai games, arts and crafts, or reading are great ways to diversify your child’s activities. If this is more difficult than you expected, establishing a family game night where digital devices are put away could be your way out. Just make sure YOU put your device away too 😉
7. Sleep Hygiene: MUUUUUCH MORE important than most people think!! Establish a healthy sleep routine for your child. Regular sleep patterns are crucial for their physical and mental development. Creating a calming bedtime routine, like reading a bedtime story together instead of the last half hour of TV, as well as setting a clear bed time, which gives your child the amount of hours recommended by medical professionals, will definitely pay off in the long term. Depending on your child’s age, recommended sleep time varies. Here’s a summary based on guidelines from various health organizations (CDC​​, Sleep Foundation​​, and AAP​​):
   • Infants (4-12 months): Should sleep 12-16 hours per day, including naps.
   • Toddlers (1-2 years): Need 11-14 hours of sleep per day, including naps.
   • Preschoolers (3-5 years): Require 10-13 hours of sleep per day, including naps.
   • School-age Children (6-12 years): Should get 9-12 hours of sleep per day.
   • Teenagers (13-18 years): Need 8-10 hours of sleep per day.
8. Learning to Save: Introduce a simple savings habit, like a piggy bank. It’s a practical way to teach your child the value of money and the concept of saving. Even if your family is well off, helping your child save coins in a piggy bank to buy a desired toy or book will teach your child so much more than is immediately obvious: financial literacy, goal setting, delayed gratification, responsibility, independence, math skills, and gaining an appreciation and value of items are only some of the skills your child can learn from this.
9. Fostering Positive Relationships: Encourage your child to build strong, supportive friendships and to practice kindness and respect, reflecting on the importance of positive interactions in their relationships. You can help by having a conversation with your child about how and why certain avoidable situations developed, and maybe even by role-playing with your child how to resolve conflicts with friends kindly.
10. Sustainable Fashion: Teach your child about sustainable fashion choices. Encouraging the use of second-hand clothes or participating in clothes swapping events can be a fun and environmentally friendly activity. Visiting a local thrift store together to choose clothes, teaching about recycling and reusing, can be an interesting and valuable experience in many ways.
11. Enjoyable Physical Activities: Advocate for regular physical activities that your child enjoys. This could include traditional Thai dance, simple exercise routines, or even a family walk in the park. If you do not have the time yourself, maybe consider enrolling your child in martial arts or football classes.
12. Global Awareness and Diversity: Introduce your child to cultures and traditions from around the world. Encourage them to learn about different countries, languages, and international customs. This can include participating in international festivals, trying diverse cuisines, or exploring world geography and history. At home, you could try cooking a meal from another culture and discussing its origins with your child. This has the added benefits that your child might discover new flavours and dishes, and be more open about what they like to eat.
13. Avoid Over-Scheduling: Teach your children the value of free time. While enrolling them in some after-school classes during the week can have excellent benefits, encourage them not to overcommit to social activities and instead sometimes appreciate the joy of relaxation and family time. Allowing your child to have unstructured playtime after school instead of filling their schedule with activities can be wonderfully relaxing for you as a parent, plus it can bring the added bonus that your child is likely tired after playing with friends, which means they will sleep faster and better.
14. Embrace Diversity in Friendships: Encourage your children to make friends with peers of different ages and backgrounds. This can broaden their perspectives and enhance their social skills. Arranging playdates with children from different cultural backgrounds or age groups shows them that you see this as common practice, and it enlarges their friend circle, among many other benefits.
15. Limit Social Media Sharing: Guide your children on the prudent use of social media. Discuss the importance of privacy and the value of personal interactions over digital ones. Ask your child how they would feel now if potential malicious actors could find details in photos and videos and how they could use that information.
16. Accept People as They Are: Teach your children to understand and accept others, recognizing that everyone has unique traits and behaviours. Point out one or two ways in which you may have felt bullied when you were younger and what the fallout from that was.
17. Appreciate Simple Pleasures: Show your children the joy of simple activities, like a family walk or playing a board game, instead of always seeking grand entertainment. Spend an evening watching stars or catching fireflies, try something new and keep it simple.
18. Practice Gratitude: Encourage your children to accept compliments graciously and express gratitude, fostering a positive self-image and respect for others. A good practice could be to every now and then to share three things you’re grateful for at the dinner table and to encourage your child to do the same.
19. Punctuality and Respect: Teach the importance of being on time and respecting others’ schedules, balancing punctuality with the understanding that sometimes being slightly late is acceptable. Arriving at a family event a few minutes late but acknowledging and apologizing for the delay is perfectly understandable.
20. Conscious Consumerism: Discuss with your children the value of mindful shopping and the impact of consumer choices on the environment and local communities. Choosing to buy books from a local bookstore instead of online to support community businesses is a great example.
21. Embrace Failures: Encourage your children to try new things without fear of failure, emphasizing that mistakes are opportunities for learning and growth. On a regular basis, I share personal stories of some failure or other, and where possible I point out that it turned into a learning experience, if nothing else, the fact that it taught me that nothing and no one is perfect. Also, another way we normalised making mistakes is by asking them on the way home what went wrong, or different from what they expected, today, and how did they handle the situation.
22. Balanced Communication: Teach the importance of face-to-face communication. Encourage leaving phones aside during family meals or gatherings to foster meaningful interactions.
23. Embrace Individuality in Style: Encourage your children to express themselves through their personal style, whether it’s their choice of clothes or hairstyle, fostering confidence and self-expression. Letting your child choose their outfit for the day, even if it’s mismatched, works wonders for confidence.
24. Value of Rest: Emphasize the importance of rest and relaxation, including the benefits of naps or quiet time, especially after school or during busy days. Encouraging a quiet reading or drawing time after school to unwind are simple solutions for this.
25. Overcoming Social Pressures: Teach children not to overcommit to social plans and to choose activities that genuinely interest them. Letting your child decide whether to attend a birthday party or spend the evening at home, based on their interest, will eventually teach them that it is OK to pass on some opportunities. Switching off is normal.

Trying out these suggestions provides practical ways for parents create a nurturing and balanced environment for your children’s growth and development. If you have any questions about your specific situation, please get in touch. Any conversation is confidential!

Well, if you’ve made it this far, I must’ve done something right, or you’re just procrastinating from doing something far more important! Either way, I do hope you pinched a nugget or two of ‘wisdom’. Fancy a chat? Shuffle over to the About Les-page to hunt down my details. Cheerio!