Teach her a new skill

Resolve to teach your child a new skill this year. Enroll her in tennis lessons, swimming lessons, dance, singing or art classes. However, often just enrolling your child is not enough. Children tend to get bored easily, and before long your child may decide that she wants to stop tennis lessons and start art classes! The best way to counter this is at to give your child a choice at the outset. Don't insist that she join something you think is good for her, and then force her to attend. Give her a few options, and then leave the final decision up to her. Once she has made her choice, encourage her to stick with it. She may want to drop out after a few sessions - which is perfectly natural, but encourage her to continue. Once she has reached a certain level of skill she will start enjoying the activity.

Read to her

Make it a point to read a short story to your child every night, before she goes to sleep. Vocabulary: Your child's vocabulary will increase by leaps and bounds, especially if you constantly keep explaining the meanings of various words to her. Reading skills: Hold the book out in front of your child as you read out to her. Follow the words with your fingers while reading. This will help your child grow accustomed to the words, and gradually reading will come more naturally to her. Diction: If your diction is good, your child's diction will also improve and her language skills will be better. In fact, if you read regularly to your child, you will find that her language will be above par, when compared to the other children in your child's batch. Bonding: Not only will reading to her regularly improve her language, but doing this every night is a great bonding exercise. You will spend some real quality time with your child and as we all know, it is not the quality, and not quantity, that matters. If you have been busy all day, keep aside just fifteen minutes to half an hour to spend with your child. This time spent together is something your child will cherish for years to come, and will possibly carry on the same habit with her children. Relaxing: In addition to being a great bonding exercise, reading out to your child is incredibly relaxing for your child, and for yourself!

Spend time together as a family

Although you live together, not many families take out the time to do things together. Once a week, every Sunday for example, make it a point to go out to a restaurant for lunch or dinner as a family. Invite grandparents along, or other family members if possible, but if everyone else is too busy, then go out just with each other. True, you could make spontaneous plans, but then they are not made as often as when you keep a day aside each month.