8 Ways to Encourage Your Toddler’s Speech Development
Parents play a crucial role in a child’s speech development. Singapore studies have shown that those children who are spoken with and read to a great deal during their early years will have better grammar and larger vocabularies compared to those who have less. As parents, here are some simple ways to help your child’s speech development.
- Talk to your child, even if he can’t understand you yet.
Narrate to your child what’s currently happening. For instance, tell your child, “Now we’ll take bath. Is the water warm? After this, we’ll get dressed and stroll at the park.” Small talks like this encourage your child to listen and mimic the sounds he hears from you.
- Read him more books.
It’s never too early to read to your infant. A good predictor of future language success is the amount of time parents spent reading to their child. You can start with board books, and then move to picture boards and longer stories as your child gets older. Story times at a Singapore library can also help your toddler develop a love for reading.
- Give your child some ‘space’ to talk…
It’s natural to feel the urge to talk when your child doesn’t respond promptly. However, it’s also important to give your toddler some time to ponder and express what he wants to say. When you ask your child a question or noticed that your child want something, pause for a few seconds while looking at him expectantly. Once you notice any body movement or sound, respond to him promptly. Your response helps your toddler to feel encouraged to communicate.
- …But don’t finish his sentence.
Do respond promptly when you see signs of response from your child, but do not finish his sentence just because you noticed that he’s struggling with words. By finishing his sentence, you’re not encouraging your little one healthy, independent conversational skill. Your child may think that they should let other people do the talking for them. positively reinforce your child’s achievement after getting stuck for a few minutes by telling them things like, “Wow, you’re a good speaker.”
- Simplify the use of language.
Doing this helps your child follow what you are saying. It also makes it easier for him to imitate speech. If your child still doesn’t know how to talk speak in single words (if he’s playing with a ball, say ‘ball’ or ‘roll.’) If your toddler is speaking mostly in single words, speak with him in short phrases, such as ‘throw ball’ or ‘roll ball.’ The key here is to use the one-up rule: Use phrases that has one more word than your child often uses.
- Do the talking turns.
Getting into conversation is traditionally hard for a child who stutters, and managing multiple conversational partners can be overwhelming for your little tot. However, you can model conversational turns in the family. Encourage conversations within siblings (or one or both parents) to encourage taking turns when talking. For example, you can do this as a form of game where each person has their own turn. Start by telling your child something like this: “First, it’s Ara’s talking turn, then it’ll be your talking turn.” To prompt a child that’s interrupting a conversation, you can say, “I can see you have something to tell dad, but it’s my talking turn right now. After me, it’s your talking turn with dad.”
- Help your child organize stories.
Help your little kid organize their story by structuring it through questions (what, where, who, etc.) “Mommy wants to hear this story. Let’s start this together. Who’s in this story?… Where did this story happen?… Okay I would love to hear more. What happens now?…” Also, help structure sequence by using first-then statements. “The first part of the story is… And then…” This way, you’re encouraging your child to analyze and talk more.
- Show your child you enjoy talking with him.
Smile and reinforce your child’s willingness to share ideas and communicate with you. Even if your toddler isn’t fluent yet, help them enjoy talking and show appreciation for what they have achieved. If your child tells you a story and got really stuck in the middle of his story, you can still reinforce communication by saying something like, “I love listening to your stories” or “Wow! That’s a good story. I’m happy you told me about that.”
Using these simple tricks that necessitates your little ones to communicate will encourage your child’s speech development. However, keep in mind that these things should be done with love and patience. When your child feels that he’s appreciated and loved despite the mistakes, it will give him confidence to continue the process.
Insider Tips to Get Free Flight Upgrade
You’re all packed up, ready to relax, unwind, and savour your well-deserved break. But of course, your airplane seat is right between a stubborn toddler and a heavy snoring guy. If happens to many of us, and no amount of wine or soundproof headphones can calm the situation down. Fortunately, we have a solution for that: Get upgraded to first class!
We’re not suggesting paying for this ridiculously expensive upgrade. Instead, we have some tips to get yourself upgraded from economy class to first-class for free!
- Be Loyal
Loyalty has its rewards. Pick one Singapore airline and fly with them every time you travel. A few points at multiple airlines won’t give you anything in return, while accumulating more points from one airline will bump up your status, resulting in increased chances of free upgrades.
- Work for Those Three Letters—SFU
As a regular flyer of a certain airline, you’re more likely to get those most coveted letters—SFU, which stands for ‘Suitable for Upgrade’. That three letters next to your name on the passengers list makes the difference between free soda in economy and free glass of champagne in business class.
- Pick the Right Plane
Choose a flight that will be using an aircraft with larger first class cabin. Knowing the configuration of the plane before booking a flight can help increase your odds of getting an upgrade, as well as help you find a good spot in economy if your upgrade plan fails.
- Wear Business Attire
While it’s not the main reason why you may get an upgrade, it increases the chances if you do so. Keep it classy to help your cause. Airlines want their first-class to feel, well, first-class—and they might approve your request if your look like you’re really a part of it.
- Have Good Timing
Requesting for an upgrade when the agent is trying to check-in passengers isn’t going to work. Do airline agents a bit of courtesy by sparing plenty of time when making your request. Also, make sure to come in early before passengers start lining up, so no one else is competing for the agent’s attention.
- Be Reasonable
Being overly demanding only encourages agents to pick someone else over you if the opportunity for a flight upgrade arises. Do not waste everyone’s time if you know that you’re not a good candidate for the upgrade. If you’re travelling with your family, have a pet dog in a cage as your carry-on, you probably don’t want to spend your time and energy demanding for an upgrade.
- See If You Know Someone From the Airline Company
If you have friends at the check-in desk—or higher up in the airline company—they may be able to help you score occasional privileges. Some airlines give their staff upgrade vouchers, which can buy you an upgrade if there’s a higher class seat available.
- Let Them Know About Special Occasions
If you’re on a honeymoon, on a birthday getaway, or other special occasion, let the airline agent know. This is a popular trick and is often honoured by airline companies, but make sure to bring a copy of your wedding document or any supporting details of your claim. And while it won’t always result in a flight upgrade, you can possible get a free glass of sparkler and some special in-flight treats.
- Check for Breakages
If there’s any problem with your seat, such as broken seatbelt or seat can’t be reclined—or even a bawling child—then get up and discreetly ask the flight attendant if they can transfer you to another seat. If there’s no space available in your current area, they may move you up a class.
- Use Your Charm
This isn’t just a myth. It may be rare, but being nice and articulate has work wonders for many. When you happen to encounter an airline issue and asked to speak to management, if you articulate yourself calmly and professionally, you might be rewarded with a free upgrade (for this flight or for another time) or other perks like free drinks or even lounge access.
Surely, there are many more ways to get a free flight upgrade. What’s your flight upgrade tip to share?
How to Protect Yourself from the Negativity
You are happy going to work because you had a good sleep but when you reach home, there is this one person capable to destroy everything good you’ve built. These people who are always on the negative side of everything are serious kill joys.
They can suck your energy, confidence and all your brilliant ideas – only if you let them. The trick here is never let them in. You have to protect yourself from these people. Here are some tips on protecting yourself from negativity:
- Decide whose advice you will take: It is crucial to make a mental list of people with negativity energy and make an effort not to listen to their advices.
- Know your values: No people can influence or persuade your state of mind if you know your values and what holds true for you. If you know important things and why it really matters, do not let negative people affect you.
- Build a barrier: This will involve self-reflection. If you build a barrier through increasing your energy, you will never let other people pop that barrier.
- Separate your energy from theirs: Sometimes you are forced to listen to negative sentiments but when it is through, you have to separate your energy from theirs. Remember that if you are plugged in, it will be hard to resist thereby leading to state of irritation, resistance, anger and frustration.
It is not easy to disengage or shun negativity but it doesn’t have to remain for long. Thinking of the negative things is natural but it should never be your state of mind and it should never influence other people.
Introducing the Features of UOB Mighty
When you choose a bank, you consider its accessibility. If you already considered UOB, you have to know that it launched a mobile application that will let you make contactless payments with only your smartphone.
The application is called UOB Mighty. UOB is proud of the application’s different features which guarantee to make the lives of many Singaporeans fast and easy. You can manage your finances easily and accomplish daily banking needs instantly.
UOB Mighty features the following:
- View accounts: Since it can be accessed through your smartphone, you can view your UOB accounts anywhere and anytime you think necessary. The application can help you track how much money you have as well as how much money you owe.
- Transfer or pay: It is inconvenient waiting for your turn when paying bills, right? UOB Mighty can help with this dilemma because of its easy transfer or easy payment of bills. Steps are simple enough so there is no problem with the instructions. The good thing is that there are many establishments here in Singapore that is accredited and accepts transfer or pay.
- Book and share: Your UOB Mighty can also help you with booking and sharing a restaurant or a hotel room. The application is linked with your Facebook and other social platforms.
- Secured access: No one will consider it if it is not secured. UOB prides itself of secured access to prevent untoward things to happen.
Now that you know the features of UOB Mighty, it is time that you download it. Of course you need to join the bank first.
Why Take Casein?
As we might already know, protein is the most important nutrient when it comes to building muscles. Whey is the more popular type of protein as it is digested quickly and is absorbed much faster by the muscles. Whey is one of two protein byproducts from milk. The other type of milk protein, casein, is the opposite of whey. It may be slow digesting but it still has its benefits.
Feeds muscles constantly
As already mentioned, casein is slow digesting. It’s not entirely a bad thing because being slow digesting means that it feeds your muscles with protein at a constant yet slow pace even as you go to work, sit at home watching TV, or even while you sleep. That’s why casein is often called the “night protein” because many bodybuilders take it before bed to keep the muscles fed with protein as they sleep.
Added muscle gain
Many bodybuilders drink a combination of whey and casein. Whey is best when feeding your muscles right after training hard because of it is quick digesting. While muscles need a quick protein feeding after workouts, they also need to be constantly fed throughout the recovery period. That’s why casein is just as important to make sure muscles are constantly given the protein needed for recovery.
More fat loss
Other than feeding muscles with protein throughout sleep, builders take casein before bed to make sure that metabolism is at work even when the body is asleep because the body will be slowly digesting casein. A higher metabolic rate means that fat is also burned at a higher rate. Moreover, being slow digesting, casein also helps in increasing satiety levels or, in other words, it makes people feel full leading to less eating and snacking.
Fat Burners Are Actually Useful
There are a lot of supplements out there that help in bodybuilding and fitness. Getting a lean body is a difficult process, as you should keep body fat as low as possible by eating less and burning more. Hence, people often resort to fat burners. However, fat burners often get the criticized for not doing anything much in actually burning fat. Actually, these facts will make you realize that fat burners aren’t all that bad.
Higher metabolic rate
Fat burners contain extracts from either green coffee or green tea. Coffee and tea are often associated with fat loss because the properties found in them are proven to improve metabolic rate and will lead to a higher rate of fat loss.
Improves satiety
Fat burners don’t necessarily burn fat per se. One of the best properties of fat burners is that they fend off hunger. One of the biggest enemies of any diet is hunger. While mental discipline may help you eat less and stay with your diet, your body can only hold off the hunger so much. It still needs to eat. Fat burners actually help you feel full and will make you stay away from late night snacking or in between meal food trips.
Energy spike
Again, fat burners don’t just burn fat. One other property of fat burners is that they increase energy levels. One may ask, “how do increased energy levels burn fat?”. Well, an increase in energy means that you can work out longer and at more intense levels than you would have before. Obviously, longer and more intense workouts mean the body burns a lot of fat.
Increased alertness
Most fat burners have green coffee extract or green tea extract because of their ability to improve metabolic rates. Alongside these extracts is caffeine at amounts that would often equate to more than three cups of coffee. Since caffeine improves alertness, imagine how much such an amount of caffeine will help your concentration. Although you may feel jittery at first, your body will be quick to adjust to the amount of caffeine.
How to Protect Yourself from Date Rape
We do not hear about date rape often but we should not discount the fact that this unfortunate thing happens and we only hope it will not happen to one of our daughters or to the daughters of someone we know. It is important that we educate our daughters about the danger of date rape so they should not be victims.
According to some studies, rape is most often committed by people we know and in places we consider safe like homes, workplaces, schools and during dates. Date rapes should be something that we have to be vigilant about. Date rapes are facilitated by a drug, alcohol or any substance that makes us numb, weak and unconscious.
As parents, knowing that our daughter suffered date rape is a nightmare. So, we have to warn them before it happens. We should tell our daughters the following things:
- Be very careful with first meetings: We have to warn our daughters about the dangers of meeting with strangers. Meeting with people we met online or texting is not a sin but we have to know the person well before deciding to meet them. We should remind our daughters to bring some company if they really wish to meet.
- Only date the people we know: Things happen because we do not know the person well. Our daughters are social beings – meeting people are fascinating to them. We should not deter them from meeting other people but we have to stress that they only date people they know or the people whose background we know of.
- Leave if the date is uncomfortable: After spending 10 to 30 minutes with a date, we will know if it is worth staying or not. Our daughters need to know that they are not pushed to spend more than they can spare. If it is too uncomfortable, our daughters should know when to leave.
- Do not get drunk in public: This is one of the things that we should emphasize to our daughters. Alcohol will decrease one’s awareness, it can cloud judgment and it will make us vulnerable. The alcohol will encourage any bad motives.
- Arm: The least that we can do for our daughters is to arm them by teaching them self-defence or if not, we can buy pepper spray and let our daughters have them. The pepper spray should be stashed in their clutch in case things happen. Pepper sprays can make a difference at the end of the day.
We cannot control who our daughters meet and speak but we have to educate them of the dangers of date rape so they will be vigilant.
How to Capture Great Moments on Camera
Indeed, a picture paints a thousand words. This is probably the reason why most Singaporeans take pictures at clubs and post it digitally. With pictures, we do not need words to express or explain things because it is implicit and we just love the way it is. As much as possible, we want to capture precious moments but what if we do not have the talent of photographers?
Of course we can still capture precious moments even if we are not photographers. The good thing is that taking picture is universal – because it is not only for limited and exclusive people. Even if we are not educated and familiar with the art of photography, we can still enjoy it.
If we are serious about taking pictures during parties, we can go to photography classes but if we do not want to spend a dime, we can scour online sources and see what we can learn from it. Why not start with this?
- Do not use flash: We know that bars and clubs are dim-lit and our instinct is to use flash when taking pictures. It can be that way but the burst of light will totally ruin the mood of the party and the atmosphere will not be captured. We have to be mindful that clubs have reflective surfaces and the flash will surely bounce off- what a bummer.
- Look for the lights: According to a famous supermodel, Tyra Banks, the lights are the model’s best friend. Whilst we are not supermodels, we can benefit from Tyra’s words. Instead of using flash, why not look for the lights instead? The challenge here is the changing patterns of lights. So, before anything else, we have to observe the light patterns first before indulging to pictures.
- Play with settings: We should know our camera’s setting so we will know what to choose. There are different cameras with particular modes like night mode or sports mode. If all else fails, we can go back to black and white or sepia.
- Take lots of photos: The best way is to take lots of pictures and decide later. We should not worry if some will not turn out okay – we will eventually get lucky and have a great one.
Even professional photographers find it hard take pictures during parties so we should not be ashamed of our skills. We will see that things will get better if we practice a lot. Capturing great moments with friends at parties is now possible.
Strobing—The New Contouring
4 Easy Steps to Achieve Flawless, Glowing Skin
It’s time to surrender your bronzers! According to beauty experts, strobing is the new contouring of today’s beauty era.
The new technique to define facial features and create stunning glow, strobing is about using light—and only light!—to highlight the face. So if you want to go au naturel, ditch the complicated contouring and follow these four quick and simple steps for gorgeous, glowing skin.
- Put On Make-Up As You Normally Would
Strobing is a finishing procedure. One important tip, though: Wear velvet or matte finish foundation instead of its luminous counterpart. The contrast between the flatness of matte foundation and the shimmer of the highlighter heightens the effect of this technique. Keep the eyes and lips matte as well, so it won’t steal the spotlight from your glowy skin.
- Go for Creamy Highlighter
Some of the best creamy highlighters we recommend are Becca’s Champagne Pop and Benefit’s Watt’s Up. When choosing a highlighter colour, take your skin tone into consideration. For those with paler skin tone, you’d look great in sheer, champagne hues; while women of colours look breath-taking in rose gold and richer gold highlights. Regardless, avoid silvery highlights, which can make you look frosty and オンライン カジノ unnatural.
- Apply on Areas Where Light Hits the face
Stipple the product on the face with the use of synthetic foundation brush. Start on the brow bone, above the brow arches, then work your way out and down the temples of the face and on the cheekbones, following a “C’ shape. Dab a very small amount of the highlighter on the bridge of the nose and finish with a dot of product on your cupid’s bow (the center of your top lip). Make sure to blend the product thoroughly for a seamless look.
- Set It With Powder Formula
To set the creamy product in place—and intensify the highlight even more—top your highlighter with a powder formula. Try Hourglass’ Ambient Lighting Powder or Too Faced’s Absolutely Invisible Candlelight. Dip your fan brush into the product, tap to remove excess powder, then lightly dust across the areas where you applied the cream product.
Making your skin look gorgeous is just four steps away. And apart from making you look glowy and luminescent in the right places, this technique is definitely a beauty solution you can turn to during those early morning rush.
