UpSkill Bud Podcast: Recent Episodes

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As parents, we all have crossed that age. The age where you are not a kid anymore, but you are not an adult too. Confused about life choices, not fitting into any category, trying to find our place, trying to understand ourselves and the ever-changing moods. Easily getting influenced by people around us, trying to match the expectations of all the people around us. Friends are cool, so I want to be cool. A cool friend likes coding, and I love it too. We were expected to behave like adults, and take more responsibility, while we ourselves are struggling to take control of our thoughts. We are expected to know what we are doing, and at the same time, expected to listen to what our parents think is right for us. Ahhhhhhh, so many things… Today, our kids are going through the same wave of emotions, maybe minus the pressure, but still a similar emotional roller coaster. In this podcast, we have tried our best to put in front of you the thought process of a teenager and how to be your child’s best friend.

Be understanding:Being anyone’s friend is about understanding them. Being empathetic – there is a whole another podcast on how to be empathetic, follow us to get the updates. For your teenager also, try to be empathetic. Remember the times when you were a teenager, and match it with how times have changed. It is the same, they are going through. This too shall pass. At this time, the best thing to do for your teenager is not to judge them but to just acknowledge their feelings. You might find their thoughts stupid and these things do not matter later in life. But that is LATER. Now, they are going through that. So, acknowledge that feeling. Once you start doing this, you will see they would be more than willing to share. Be their genuine friend.

Be available:I know after a hard day’s work, the last thing you want to hear is a teenager’s rant. But, if you want to befriend your teenager, you will have to listen. And actually listen, however boring and unimportant it might sound. For them, those things are their whole world now. If you need to maintain friendships with your friends, you need to make time for them. The same goes with your kids too. Just that what they want from life will be different. As parents, we tend to judge our children and start lecturing them. The minute you start doing this, they will stop sharing. First, be their friend, be available and listen, then slide your suggestion to them in between a conversation, they will listen. Being friends with your teenager is an art.
Believe in them:Times have changed a lot since we were teenagers. It is a fast-moving world and new and exciting things keep popping up every day. The things they are attracted to or interested in are something you wouldn’t ever hear of. But, does that mean it is bad? Believe in them. Give them confidence about their choices and respect their decision. Your kids are not kids anymore. You need to let go of that protective parent vibes and start I will stand with your vibes. Take interest in their interest. Let them explore that world on their own. Be supportive of their choices, and see the friendship blossom.

Let them be alone:Of all the things that we see in social media and the mainstream media, it is natural for us to panic when we see our kids grow up and ask for their own time. What do they do in their room? The constant worry of them falling into a bad trap is one thing that bothers us as parents the most. But, you need to find that balance. Trust them and most importantly, trust your parenting abilities. That doesn’t mean that we are happily unaware of anything that is happening in our kids' life. This is one of the steps in being friends with your teenager. If you do not follow other steps and only allow them to be alone all the time, then that is definitely not good. Do all of the above steps and keep your kids close to you.

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I know what you are going to say, we have heard Habits way too many times, but that won't work. We start and two days later, it falls flat and doesn’t work. Well, true as it may, there are some simple steps that can be done to make sure the habits are set and most importantly habits are stuck. Here’s how listen to this podcast to see simple steps to develop good habits.

In the most popular book Atomic Habits, the author James Clear has given many practical advice and steps to develop good habits and most importantly break bad habits. I would strongly recommend all to pick up this book and read it. I would rate it one of the top books for habit formation. Most of the steps in this podcast is inspired by Atomic habits, I have tried it on my son and have got really good results.

There are 4 steps for habit formation.

Decide which habit you want to start:

First and foremost we need to decide on what we need to do. Which habit do we need to pick. Definitely do not make a list of 10 -20 habits. Just pick one. Start with only one habit. I know as parents, we have a lot of good habits we want to set for our kids. Right from waking up at the right time, to cleaning the room, doing homework, cutting nails, reading books and the list goes on. The biggest mistake that we do, is to pick up multiple habits, all at once, and pile them up, one after the other. Everyone resists change and when we are piling up a lot of changes all at once, then it is certainly headed for failure. So, be mindful and choose one. Once that is habituated, we can introduce the other one and so on.

Attach to an existing habit

This is a very interesting step. As taken from the book Atomic habits, attaching a new habit to an existing habit is one of the best ways to create a routine and the best way to make sure of regular practice. Say you want to introduce reading habit to your kid. Attach this with any existing habit. For example, just before bedtime every day, read for 5 mins. Say 9.00 pm the sleep time, keep the book ready beside the bed or on nightstand and while on the bed or study table, let them read for 5 mins and then go to sleep. Be mindful that they do this for a week and this habit becomes a routine. The day they don’t read a book, they feel something is amiss. Voila, you have achieved it. Habit one, done. No surprise if this 5 mins, extends to 10 mins or more. Like this, whenever you want to introduce a new habit, attach it to an existing one, till it becomes a routine.

Start small

Another big mistake that we do when we are on a path of developing habits is having big goals. Say your regular wakeup time is 7.00 and you set a goal of waking up at 5.00 am from tomorrow. It is honestly a big leap, you might wake up 1 -2 days and you get detested. I am definitely not saying all will miss to keep up with big goals. But most people do miss. So, the best thing to stay motivated is to start small. Set a goal to wake up at 6.50 if you are waking up at 7.00. Just 10 mins before, it doesn’t sound big and it feels like you are waking up earlier. Find that balance and start small.

Be regular

The final step into great habit-building is to be regular. More than starting a habit, being consistent is important. Many of us fail to keep any habit consistent. We start with that initial hype and fall flat soon after. Lack of motivation, lethargy, procrastination, high expectations, and the reasons vary. So, the most important step of all is to be regular. Practice the habit every day till it becomes a habit. If you follow the 3 steps above, the fourth step of being regular should not be a problem.

For now, wishing you all the best in your journey to set a new beautiful habit that will change you and your child’s life forever.

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One of the core skills as humans is having good relationships with people around us. For this, we need to be compassionate. We need to feel others as our own and talk to people without any judgment. We can teach empathy to our kids at an early age. Here we have discussed, some of the ways how we can introduce empathy for our kids.

Before we even start, let us learn what is empathy? Empathy is truly caring for others. Understanding the other person before judging them. Most important of all is to be truly compassionate for others, no matter what situation they are in or you are in. Can we teach our kids to be empathetic? Surely, we can. It can be taught at any age. We have to introduce empathy as early as possible. In today’s podcast, we have listed a few activities that you can do to bring out the compassionate feeling in our kids.

Why is it necessary for the kids to be empathetic? Empathetic people have a lot of advantages. Empathetic people have more positive relationships, it is easy for them to make friends, they make excellent parents, and also since they do understand other’s feelings, they do not bully others. Empathetic people can be compassionate leaders as well.

But, how do we teach empathy to our kids? Empathy is a behavioral trait that needs to be nurtured and taught with real-life events. Here are some of the things that we can do to teach empathy to our kids.

1. Model behavior.

2. Point out rude behavior.

**3. Discuss emotions.

1. Praise empathetic behavior**

Some of the activities that you can do to bring out empathy in kids

You can use these activities for different age groups as suitable.

1. Read stories:
2. Use pictures:
3. Play emotional board games with family:
4. Observe others:
5. Meditation:
6. Discuss events:
7. Volunteering:

Like many skills, empathy can be taught over time. It is easier when we practice the same at home every day. Together, we can build strong relationships for a lifetime with empathetic children. Let's get started at the earliest.

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How to make your child develop interpersonal skills?

1. Build confidence:
   Some of the kids may be shy and reserved and find it difficult to work in team. We can definitely help them to build confidence to talk and mingle with their peers with some activities, starting at home.

Cooking with siblings:

Cooking is one of the tasks, which work the best to teach team building. You can ask them to work on No-Fire cooking at home. Chopping, baking, mixing, serving, cleaning, all of these tasks can be planned, shared, and presented well. This also develops good bonding and confidence and of course it is an extremely fun activity.

Board games:

Playing board games, as a family is one the best activity we can do as parents to our kids. Kids love it when parents join them for games. Build confidence, teaches them the feeling of winning and losing. Helps them to be a gracious loser. This is one of the important traits of a team player.

1. Create Opportunities

As parents, when we are trying to make our kids' team players, we need to try and provide them with opportunities. Here are some of the was where you can find these opportunities for them.

Birthday parties:
Birthday parties are fun and perfect places to teach team-building skills. Kids need to wait for their turn, participate in-group games, and be happy for others. So, if you are invited to a birthday party, please make sure that your kids attend.

Office team outing:
This is the time when they can meet new people who they do not meet often. New emotions and new excitement come into the picture. You can make sure that the kids can play in some group activity, to teach them to be a team players.

1. Teach good behavior

It is important to teach them good behavior to be a part of a team.

Observe while at play:

Kids learn a lot by observing others; they learn a lot by mimicking the people they are around with. We must make sure they are aware of their behavior. If they are misbehaving, we need to reach out and check with them the reason. Being a team player means, they need to understand their strengths and weakness as well as their peers. They need to play to their strengths and move back when their peer wants to shine.

Group play:
Another great activity to teach them to be team player is letting them act in a play. Acting in a play, improves communication, and makes them best listeners, also good speakers. Imagine, working along peers to memorize their lines, understanding the characters, working for costumes. All of these will make sure they work along with other people to be best team players.

1. Teach them to accept criticisms:

There is a thin line between criticism, bullying and putting someone down. Teach them the difference between these. Kids should know the difference and should be able to defend themselves or accept the constructive criticism that comes their way. While at play, kids may suggest the way they are playing the game is wrong. Or, which acting in a play, they need to listen to what their teachers are asking them to do. They should be open to these and try and implement the same in their act. Constructive criticism always helps them to grow as great individuals. Makes them excellent team players and everyone will want them in their team.

1. Talk to caregivers and educators

To understand your kids, always talk to their caregivers and educators. You might be working on making them a team players, but the results must always be crosschecked with the educators. Are they participating in school activities? How are they behaving with their friends? Also, explain the activities that you are doing with your child and get feedback from them. If necessary make a few tweaks to the plan.

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Identifying the child’s talents is one of the interesting activities for parents. This set of tasks that we do also brings us closer to our kids. In this podcast, we have put together some of the tasks that we as parents can do. These tasks help, to analyze and understand our child’s talents. Listen to know more…

Raising kids is not an easy feat, there are new challenges every day, and with every situation, complicated emotions come into play and there is no set of instructions that work for all situations. Every child is unique and talented in his own way. As parents, we try and find the best possible solution to all the parenting problems that we face. One such problem is ‘How to identify your child’s talent and interest’.

We, as parents often wonder what would our kids do when they grow up. We try to find their abilities and give them the best of the support and guidance necessary to pursue their interests and passion. But often, we find it confusing to identify their interest and passion at a young age. So here, we have compiled some of the ways where you could observe and recognize their interests. These are not scientific methods, but include general observations and actions that parents can do, to support budding talents.

There are 3 main steps that help us to narrow down your child’s talent.

1. Exploring your child’s talent and interest
2. Learn about types of intelligence
3. Evaluate abilities and intelligence

**Let us look at each one of these points in detail.

Listen to this podcast to know more...**

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As parents, our goals for parenting vary from parent to parent. There is no right or wrong, it is very individualistic. But, there are some skills that the majority of parents agree as a must-have. Goal setting is one of them. In this podcast, we are going to talk about goal setting, plans, and execution. 

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Hybrid learning is where the students learn simultaneously online and offline. Class is divided into 2 groups, 1 group connects online and the other attends offline class. In this podcast, we try to make the parents understand more about Hybrid classes, its advantages and disadvantages.

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Raising happy, independent adults is every parent’s responsibility. But, how can we even think about this when we are still dealing with tantrums and homework…? And did you know, that having independent kids also means that we have little extra time for ourselves? Want to know how? Listen to this podcast to know more…