Anastasia

Back to School

In Cyprus, school starts at the age of six and ends at the age of seventeen. The first  bell for elementary schools (ages 6-11) rang last Thursday at 7:45 am while the bell for high school (ages 11-17) went off on Monday 12.  School finishes by 1:30 for all kids. Most children take up private tuition in the afternoon such as languages, computers, piano or any other musical instrument, ballet, sport - the most popular being swimming and football. At the age of 7-8 all children want to learn English, so they enrol to private language schools, like mine.

The first day of term was quite uneventful. My Junior A are so cute and eager to learn English! At the moment, they are also very quiet and attentive in class. My older students said that they did not get bored in the summer - not for one minute! They added that they did not miss school but were glad to be back to their English classes! That was a relief! They also said that they had a great time playing on the computer, watching TV and  going to the beach. 

Time has wings....mid September already. When I go back to school in September, I always bring back happy school  memories  dating back to the time when I was my kids' age. My happiest memory is the graduation ceremony at high school.

What's your best or worst memory of high school? When does school start in your part of the world?

Manners Maketh Man

I can't stand rudeness in any shape or form as this is a sign of disrespect for other people. Having finished work today at 9:00 pm, I went to the parking place where I had parked my car only to see that a very rude person had double parked, thus preventing me from driving home after a long day at work. If there is something I really hate as a driver is to blow the horn - especially at a relatively late hour when children might be sleeping. I waited for about 10 minutes, but nothing happened. I could have called the police but I changed my mind as this would probably delay me even more. Despite feeling guilty, I blew my horn. Five minutes later, the owner of the double-parked car arrived. He didn't even apologise!

I was raised in a family where good manners mattered. At a very early age, I was taught to say please and thank you, sit properly at the table, open doors for my elders and stand aside to let them pass. By the age of four, I had also learned to greet the people who visited us and use in greek the polite form of "you" to address them. It just annoys me to see that there are so many people out there who don't think that good manners are important. For instance, some of my students - especially teenagers - won't even say "Hello, miss" when I greet them. I guess it all starts in the home, when children are little and still learning. 

As William of Wykeham said "Manners Maketh Man", originally meaning that manners are the basis of our society and extended to manners are created by our society. We need to nurture something to be proud of., don't we? You reap what you sow, after all.

Do you think good manners matter? Do you try to instill good manners in your children?

Do video games help shy youngsters build social skills?

 

Photo Credit

Hong Kong - Scientists have found that children who spend hours playing online games may be developing friendships and nurturing vital social skills, a news report said Tuesday.

Rather than causing them harm, playing computer games can help boost the self-esteem of shy youngsters and increase their satisfaction with life, the South China Morning Post reported.

The benefits of online games were similar to those of making friends in the real world, the researchers from the Chinese University in Hong Kong concluded.

More than 600 primary school children were interviewed for the study, which found they spent an average of 67 minutes a day playing online games and 44 minutes using hand-held game consoles.

Nearly one-fifth of the pupils interviewed said they played for three hours a day or more, according to the newspaper.

Dr Angel Leung of the university's psychology department said: "Online friendship is ... especially important to those who are extremely shy or introverted - those who have difficulties making friends in real life."

However, she conceded that playing online games too much could adversely affect their academic results with English the subject most affected by game playing, the report said.

Copyright DPA

via www.earthtimes.org

If you ask me, online games and more specifically these interactive video games can eventually turn out to be detrimental to a child's physical condition and psychological growth. They contribute greatly to child obesity and to aggressive personalities. I really don't think they can help shy children build social skills. On the contrary, they tend to cut off children from the real world by making them unfriendly and anti-social while their grades can drop dramatically- not only in English but in all other school subjects. What's worse, these games can become terribly addictive for the child who gradually begins to live in a virtual world of make believe. Children need to go out and play, run, jump, skip, meet their friends, practise sports and take up creative hobbies. That's how they can develop real social skills.

On the other hand, technology is part of both adults and children's lives. Some online games can be really fun for children and can help them develop creative skills, yet, even in this case, parents should, by all means supervise their children, set time limits and stick to them and, most importantly, talk with their children in order to make them realise that real life doesn't work the way they see it in their online games. In this way, children will be able to see the difference between the virtual, unreal world of a video game, and the many benefits they can gain in the real world.

Healthy Eating Habits For Children

I came across a very interesting post the other day at Ayala's Herbal Water in which she suggests some useful tips on how to get children to eat fruit and vegetables. I think she has a point when she says that children copy adults, so it is as clear as daylight that children won't eat F&V if the parents are meat lovers, like most parents in my country, or if they give in to their children's wishes to have pizza or a MacDonald's meal every other day.

In Cyprus, a very serious effort has been made recently to include fresh fruit and vegetables as alternative snacks to chocolate, ice cream, crisps, cheese pies or doughnuts during school recesses. Unfortunately, children ignore the fruit and veggies and would rather give their pocket money for a packet of crisps instead of a banana or cola instead of fruit juice! On the other hand, I was very happy to hear that most playschools provide the parents with a list of snacks for their children to bring to school, such as apples, bananas, oranges and brown bread sandwiches with tomato, cucumber and low-fat cheese and ham. You may smile but I think that a child needs to get used to healthy eating habits at a young age.

Despite these efforts, there are still a lot of obese children in Cyprus aged 8-12. To me, an obese child will almost invariably grow into an obese adult although once in their teens, things seem to change. Many teenagers - especially girls- go on extreme diets in an effort to look like Beyonce and, as a result, they become victims of various eating disorders.

Depriving children of their favourite foods is also wrong. Once a week , they can have their favourite junk food , their favourite sweet, their favourite ice cream. But getting used to eating F&V at a very young age - as young as the age of three - children will grow into happy, healthy adults who will never have to go on diet simply because they eat a little bit of everything.