How Can I Teach My Toddler to Share?
October 31, 2008
Helping your child move from breast breast milk or formula to solids is a milestone for both you and your baby. However, it can be challenging for some parents. Here are some tips and tricks I’ve compiled for introducing solid foods to your baby. Do remember, however, that you should follow your pediatrician’s advice if you’re in doubt.
Start with fruits One tip I’ve heard from various is to start with fruits. Use really ripe bananas, mashed with a fork. Or sweet potatoes (baked, with the insides scooped out).
Use a baby food grinder You can try small bits of real rice, mixed with meats (without seasonings). The meat should be meshed with baby food grinder (you can find these pretty cheap).
Don’t feed your baby directly from the jar This is an interesting tip I’ve heard from experienced mothers. Feeding your baby directly from the jar is not a good idea. Their saliva can mix with the food and make it taste bad. Put the food in a mug rather than a bowl so that you can feed baby more easily.
Keep away the sweet tooth Try not to give baby sweet stuff at this stage. Deliberately give them vegetables before fruits to keep away that sweet tooth.
Children, Entitlement and God
October 31, 2008
"Setting the alarm on Sunday mornings is inhuman?..God should know that!" Those were my adolescent thoughts every weekend when my parents forced me to church. "I can get more out of my headphones and the Beatles." It was this way as far back as I can remember. Early Sunday school, then later Bible studies, liturgies in another language, all culminating in a weekly teen rebellion against God and my parents. I really hated my parents (especially my Mother) for forcing religion on me. "Besides, I don’t think the Smothers Brothers forced their kids, and they are political giants!" I would brood the entire hour’s drive to church just to make my parents as miserable as I felt. It never changed in all those years.
I look back thirty-five years to those times now and bless my parents in every prayer I pray for the gift they gave me. I no longer practice their religion, but I live with every pore in my body believing in something greater than myself. My faith is as easy as a breath in, and during times of great challenge, I don’t have to search for God or strength. Everything I need is already there and will always be.
The Courage to Be a Loving Parent
October 30, 2008
Most of us really don’t like it when someone is angry at us. We don’t like it when people go into resistance to helping us when we need help, instead of caring about us. We don’t like it when people withdraw from us, disconnecting from us and shutting us out. We don’t like it when people make demands on us and do not respect our right or need to say no. Many of us will do almost anything to avoid the soul loneliness and pain we feel when people treat us in angry, resistant, demanding and uncaring ways.
It takes great courage to stay loving to ourselves and others when faced with others’ angry and closed behavior. It especially take courage when the people we are dealing with are our own children. Yet unless we have the courage to come up against our children’s anger, resistance, and withdrawal, we will give ourselves up and not take care of ourselves to avoid their uncaring reactions. The more we deny our own truth and our own needs and feelings, the more our children will disrespect and discount us. Our children become a mirror of our own behavior, discounting us when we discount ourselves, disrespecting us when we disrespect ourselves. The more we give ourselves up to avoid our children’s unloving behavior toward us, the more we become objectified as the all-giving and loving parent who doesn’t need anything for ourselves. When we do this, we are role-modeling being a caretaker.
The Most Powerful Question a Parent Can Ask?
October 29, 2008
The question I have for you drives right to the heart of the matter. It could alter that tired, haggard feeling you have at the end of a day or weekend. It could alter the life of your children for the better and the life of their future partner. More than that, it could even alter your community, because once I’ve told you the question and you’ve seen how powerful it is you’ll want to share it with your brother, sister, neighbours and friends.
Before I ask you my question I want to set the scene. You’re a loving parent striving to give your children the best life you can offer. You race around the household picking up their dirty underwear from under the bed, collecting the towels from the bathroom floor and spend whatever time it takes to knock up their favourite food while one of your children spends fifty percent of their free time surfing the net and talking in chat rooms and the other catches up on thirty hours of TV a week. Meantime, you?
Well, sometimes you might feel tired. Sometimes deflated. Sometimes unappreciated and perhaps just a tad grumpy! If you relate to any of what I describe then my question will change it all for you and I recommend you read on.
Eco-Parenting
October 28, 2008
Arabella Greatorex, owner of The Natural Nursery, reports on the rapidly rising demand for natural, environmentally friendly and ethically sound parenting products and highlights some of the concerns that have fuelled these demands.
Organic Food
There has been much media debate around the promotion of heavily processed foods to children, part of a long standing concern about the quality of food on offer in the UK. While some say the jury is still out on issues such as pesticide residues in fruit and vegetables, it is worth noting that only 30 additives are allowed in organic food, compared to over 300 in non-organic. Specifically, organic food bans the use of tartrazine (linked to hyperactivity in children) and GM ingredients.
The Soil Association reports that sales in organic food grew by 10% last year overall and purchases from farm shops and box schemes by a whopping 16%. This means that over 75% of households bought some organic food during 2004.
Organic baby and toddler foods now account for nearly half of total baby foods in the UK, with its market share growing rapidly, highlighting the level of concern felt by parents, and is a trend that looks set to continue.
The ONLY Thing You Need to Consider When Learning
October 27, 2008
The ONLY Thing You Need to Consider When Learning
by: Sam Hazell
Wonder how children learn so darn quick?
Well, the answer is easier than you might think.
There are many contributing factors to a child’s almost miraculous ability to soak up information that passes their way (and some information which we can only wonder at its source). To understand it, at least in part, we need to have a look at the way we, as fully fledged adults, try to learn. First, take a look at the list below (by no means an exhaustive list) and mentally cross off which aspect of life is not of concern to you
1. Work
2. Bills
3. Relationships
4. Limited holiday time
5. Health
6. Appearance to others
Perhaps you could eliminate maybe 1 or 2 of these which don’t apply to youHowever, more than likely you couldn’t mark any of these at all off your list.
Why is this significant?
Because it changes the way we do many things; including learn.
Obviously as we start to work, get involved with significant others, and take the responsibility (perceived or otherwise) of being an adult we:
Best Baby Shower Invitation Ideas
October 26, 2008
The best baby shower invitation ideas help everyone to have fun without adding stress on the expectant mother. Planning for a newborn can be overwhelming to each family member, so providing the best baby shower invitation ideas with fun and little effort on Mom helps to give the baby shower lasting feelings of friendship and love.
Many baby showers focus on one or two fun areas that make the shower a party, but the best baby shower invitation ideas also create cherished memories as a gift that lasts for years after the celebration. These baby shower invitation wording ideas can help you get your messages across best - http://www.invitingsmiles.com/baby-shower-invitation-wording.html
One of the Best Baby Shower Invitation Ideas is the Children’s Book Theme. Ask each guest to include her favorite child’s book for the new baby’s library-to-be. Most guests usually bring more than one book and it’s a great way for everyone to reminisce about special memories at the party. Include a separate note in the invitation reminding each guest to write a short message for the new baby to eventually read why that book was your guest’s favorite.
Co-sleeping, a personal story
October 26, 2008
When I was pregnant, we knew that we had some fairly fixed ideas about how we wanted to raise our child, including allowing her to share our bed for as long as she wanted to.
We have been shocked and sometimes upset at other people’s reaction to what seemed to be a very instinctive decision, to sleep with our daughter. I am often made to justify this decision and made to feel as if we are "bad" parents just because we hadn’t trained her to sleep in a cot in her own room by 8 weeks old.
As it happens, we didn’t even really talk about it, it just seemed the right and natural thing to do and offered some major advantages. Our daughter loved the constant contact and it made it so much easier to breastfeed during the night. By simply rolling over and letting her feed before either of us were fully awake, we were both able to drift back to sleep much quicker than if I had had to get up to feed, so everyone got extra sleep.
Homework Help for the Attention Deficit Child
October 25, 2008
Does the homework battle so typical with your hyperactive or A.D.D. child have you at the end of your rope? Relax. We have some tried-and-try ADHD information that should get your A.D.D. child on the right homework path.
The hyperactive or A.D.D. child especially needs consistency, a work place free of distractions, solid encouragement and praise - along with established consequences if the positive homework tips fail.
Establish a Set Homework Routine:
Because the A.D.D. child functions best in a consistent environment, homework should be done in the same place, at the same time and for a set amount of time every day.
Work with your child to develop that routine. Some Attention Deficit and hyperactive children work best immediately after school while others need an hour or two to settle down before jumping back into studies.
To help the A.D.D. child better focus, the work area should be free of distractions, such as televisions, video games, music and other people. The kitchen table might not be the best place if there is too much activity in that room. The bedroom can offer distractions if the television or stereo have a way of “turning themselves on” when you are not there to monitor.
Hurting from the Outside - In: The Rise of Self-harming
October 24, 2008
Ask any teacher or adolescent counselor what the most disturbing trend they are seeing in teens today is, and they are likely to tell you it’s the growing number of “cutters”.
By cutters, they mean people who hurt themselves or “self-injure” a term that is more encompassing of the many types of behaviors that are actually involved. Whatever the form of self-injury, cutting, burning, biting or any of many other similar behaviors, teens hurting themselves in an attempt to deal with emotional pain is on the rise.
Today it is thought that 1% of youth in America are engaging in self-harming behavior. And, while both males and females are self-harming, girls are four times more likely to self-harm than boys. This behavior, which has been around forever, but was noted only rarely in the past, is running through peer-groups like a infectious disease; striking fear into the hearts of many parents. Parents often do not know what to make the behavior in their children
