Home with the Kids Newsletter August 2, 2005

The Editor's Desk - From Beneath the Clutter
Feature Article - Network Marketing Tips & Ideas
What's happening on the discussion boards?
Guest Article - Successful Childhood Learning Starts with Reading Aloud
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The Editor's Desk - From Beneath the Clutter

This week is off to a fun and hectic start. I spent yesterday at my mother's because she had my two nieces who are within a year on each side of Ariel's age there. The girls made cookies. Today we're going to the Natural History Museum because they're free the first Tuesday of each month. Maybe Wednesday I'll have some time to myself again.

My dad should be coming to visit soon, which is exciting and should be interesting. I haven't been able to go visit him due to Gage's surgery, so he hasn't met Gage yet. We're mostly going to be talking business, but with kids it's impossible to just stick to business.

Add all this to the chronic need to keep unpacking and life doesn't look to be settling down anytime soon!

Don't forget, you can contribute your articles or tips anytime for consideration. Just use the contact form.

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Feature Article

Network Marketing Tips & Ideas

Network marking is the ordinary person’s best opportunity to make extraordinary income. Well-known author, Robert Kiyosaki says ethical network marketing businesses are like business schools. They teach people the power of building their own business

Find the Best Business Opportunity
Believe that the business opportunity you have, is the best ever home based business. If you are currently in an organization that you do not believe in 110 per cent then find something else. If you are not excited to get out of bed every day and grow your business, then find another business. If you do not belief in the products you sell and are not using them, then find another business opportunity.

Have a Business Vision
You must have a Vision of where you want to be in 5 years time. Have written goals and plans of how and when you will attain your Vision. Read your goals and vision statement at least daily. Have both long term and short-term goals.

Stay Focused
There are many distractions when working from home. Have a weekly meeting with yourself. Ask yourself if you have done all you could to grow your business. If you were your employer, would you have you back again next week?

Be Consistent
Ensure your plan and goals are realistic. Be sure you are following your plan. Have a written list of your daily activity. If your plan is to talk to 5 people a day and you only talk to 4, then commit to talking to 6 tomorrow. Don’t finish work until you achieve your goals for that day. Do not compromise.

Have Faith in Yourself
Sometimes this means blind faith. Believe you will succeed and you will. Mark Hughes, the founder of our organisation, says ‘fake it until you make it’. Act as if you are already well established and wealthy. America’s leading philosopher, Jim Rohn says that you need to work harder on yourself than you do on your business and you will reach your goal.

Customer Care
Care more about your customer and their satisfaction than you do about the money you make. Follow up customers to ensure they are happy with the products/services you provide. Take a personal interest in them. Your excellent service and caring attitude will bring you repeat business and many referrals.

Empower Your Down Line
Care more about your down line that the money you make from them.
Take time to know what their goals and dreams are. Concentrate on working with them to achieve their goals and build their business. This will automatically build your business…

Have a Fantastic Attitude.
Work at deleting negative thoughts from your mind. Change your self-talk. Use positive language. Make a commitment to yourself that you will never complain about other people. Work toward having a reputation of a person who always sees the glass as being overflowing Be respectful everyone you come in contact with.

You will not make your fortune in your first week in business. Work constantly on reaching your goals. Focus on your vision, be consistent and follow your plan. Change it if it is not working. Continually improve your attitude. Remember failure is not an option.

Cheryl Haining is a successful home based business operator. To learn how to create an income stream from your home that will replace your job and develop true financial freedom visit: www.keybusinesstips.info For information about nutrition and diets visit www.uloseweight.net

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Guest Article

Successful Childhood Learning Starts with Reading Aloud

Research has consistently shown that children who love to read excel in school and continue to excel in higher education and life in later years. Reading aloud with your child is key to sparking the passion for reading.

Popular theory in the world of education has long been that a young child is an empty slate, just waiting to have information poured into them. That theory has promoted the idea that learning by rote will make a child smarter, and thus more likely to succeed. But studies of the last fifteen years or so have turned such thinking on its ear – the new thought behind early childhood development is not to shove a book under their noses and say “learn,” rather, it’s to show your child how to learn, by reading with them, and forging not just an interest, but a real pleasure out of what the printed word can bring.

Let’s looks at an example: “The filibuster is a strategy employed in the United States Senate, whereby a minority can delay a vote on proposed legislation by making long speeches or introducing irrelevant issues. A successful filibuster can force withdrawal of a bill, and filibusters can be ended only by cloture.”

Pretty interesting, huh? No? Well, to be honest, we didn’t think it would be. The fact of the matter is, if you don’t have a passion for politics, a piece of information about a political process will likely go in one ear and out the other, even if you’re forced to read the passage more than once. You could read it two or three times, memorize the words, and even be tested on them, but will you still remember that information next week? How about in a month?

When your child goes to school and is told to read several pages in a book that doesn’t interest them, they’re going through the exact same thing you just experienced. If there’s no inherent passion for reading, and no passion for the subject matter, then there will be minimal retention at the end of it all.

A study of 74 schools by the UK National Foundation for Educational Research found that “fewer youngsters believe reading is difficult, compared with 10 years ago. However, there is a substantial decrease in pupils reading for pleasure. 65% of 9-year-olds and 73% of 11-year-olds said they did not think reading was difficult, compared with 56% and 62% respectively in 1998. Just over 7 out of 10 of the younger age group enjoy reading as a pastime, compared with 78% five years ago, while for 11-year-olds, the proportion has declined from 77% to 65%. Children said they preferred watching television to going to the library or reading. But the biggest changes in attitudes were among boys. In Year 6, only 55% of boys said they enjoyed stories compared with 70% in 1998.”

Why? Perhaps other statistics in the same report might have some insight:

24% of children under the age of 4 had television sets in their bedrooms
More than 50% of children over the age of 4 have their own TVs
28% have computer games in their rooms
8.5% of under-fours have a VCR in their rooms

The Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) recommends that parents read with their child for at least fifteen minutes every day, all the way through third grade, stating, “Before you read each book, read the title and look at the cover and pictures inside. Ask your child what [he or] she thinks the book may be about. After reading the book, review [his or] her predictions. Was the prediction right? If not, what happened instead?”

The object in such an exercise is threefold: You make reading an interactive experience that a child can enjoy much as they do playing in the yard, you give the child an opportunity to ask questions about things they don’t understand, and you promote creative thought within your child, where they learn to assess what they see, critically appraise it, and think beyond what they’re seeing on the page.

The FCRR advice goes further, recommending a weekly trip with your child to the library, and rhyming games that make your child think about how words are put together, all of which are intended to show your child that reading is just as much fun off-the-page as it is on.

The ultimate object is to convince your child to open a book for fun, in their spare time, and thus begin a lifelong enjoyment of the written word and the information that books can bring. This doesn’t just help them at school - according to the NCREL, readers “have self-confidence that they are effective learners [and] see themselves as agents able to actualize their potential.”

It’s important for every parent to realize the value of literacy in their child, at the earliest age possible, but it’s even more important to understand the value of comprehension, and how you can help that seed take root.

Brent Sitton is a founder of DiscoveryJourney.com, featuring tools to promote a love to read. Books on the Child Book List engage children and delight parents.Children's Book Reviews include fun, educational Activities, inspiring a passion for reading!