Articles » Parenting Children
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Inculcate Honesty In Your Children
Just because we have children, it doesn't mean that we can work to earn a living any less than before the kids arrived. Today more and more households that have children are maintained by Mothers and Fathers that who both hold full time careers. It is inevitable to have to work full time in order to make a good living for you and your children, but how do you explain to them the reason why you are gone all day? How do you keep them from feeling that you don't care enough to be at home all of the time?
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When Older Children Regress In Behavior
Early on, comfort habits fill an important need for your child. Try to value this sense of purpose, and you may avoid feeling anxious or embarrassed about your child's particular "vice." There is plenty of evidence that the more anxious you feel about thumb sucking, for example, and the more attention you draw to it, the more you end up reinforcing the very behavior that disturbs you.
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Dealing With Your Child's Temper Tantrums
Perhaps no situation leaves parents feeling so powerless and shaken as a temper tantrum. And few experiences are as memorable. The same mother who cannot tell you what she ate for lunch the day before can recall in vivid detail the time, the place, the weather, and a dozen other details of the traumatic scene, including the horrified stares of onlookers. A small child in the fury of an all out fit may overwhelm her parents.
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Dealing With A Difficult Child
Is your child difficult to handle? Is he or she extremely strong willed when it comes to behaving properly?
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Responding To Your Child's Mistakes
Most children love to blame someone else for their troubles and mishaps. If they do something wrong or get into trouble then their gut instincts are to put the blame on the next person that they can. Why do they do this? The answer may surprise you.
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Avoid Using Guilt On Your Children
Being a successful parent to your children is more than just making sure they are fed properly or that they get to school on time. It's more than simply making sure your child is safe and behaving good. Being a successful parent also means raising kids without guilt in their lives. Guilt means to feel bad about something that was said or done in the past. Now to a certain extent, the past can be used as a tool to motivate improved behavior. This is because learning from the past serves a useful purpose. But guilt is not learning from the past.
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Teaching Your Daughter To Adopt Healthy Lifestyle
Today more than ever before it is crucial to teach your daughter the importance of being healthy instead of thinking that it is all about her "looks". Attentive and self-aware parents are those that are keen to how much television and the social status are emphasizing skin-deep beauty and what is the "cool" way to look, be, do, and live, instead of healthy living.
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Encouraging Your Children To Welcome Changes
Everything in life is changing every day, all of the time. Change is as basic a part of our reality as night as day is. If there is one thing that you can count on in life, it is the unpredictability of change. As human beings our bodies are in a constant state of change, our minds are always evolving, and our attitudes towards life are changing every minute by what we are experiencing from everything around us.
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Encouraging Your Children To Listen
"If only my child would listen more!" This is a comment that parents of all ages and all cultural backgrounds are saying every day. The ability to teach your children to listen both in the home and outside of the home is truly the hallmark of successful parenting. If your kids will listen to you for a large portion of the time, then your future years of parenting will be much easier, for both you and your kids.
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End Fighting With Your Children
How many times have you heard the saying that "Fighting is a natural part of life," or "A good fight now and again is good for the relationship and keeps things alive"? But really, is that how you feel? Do you truly believe that fighting with the family, with your spouse, and especially your children, is good for you all?
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Benefits Of Respecting Your Child's Privacy
Being a successful parent takes more than just teaching your kids right and wrong, good or bad, or health and fitness. It is also about it "respect". I'm not talking about them respecting you in today's article, I'm talking about you having respect for them, particularly for their privacy.
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Car Seat Safety Protection For Your Child On Roads
Every year that passes children between the ages of one and eighteen are killed in car crashes more than any other cause. A large percentage of these deaths could have been prevented if the children were properly restrained. Your duty as a watching, caring, and successful parent is to ensure total safety of your young child, both inside the home and especially outside the home.
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Preparing Your Preschooler For Bedtime
For many parents who are raising children under the age of five, the most dreaded part of the day is at bedtime. And this is often for good reason because unless a preschooler is extremely tired, he will totally resist going to sleep. This problem may be more troublesome to deal with if your little child has older brothers or sisters who tend to stay up later at night. Your preschooler is bound to want to stay up late so that he does not "miss out" on anything that his siblings may be enjoying. And because those feelings are understandable, there is no harm in granting some extra stay-up privileges for your preschooler. However, it is important to keep in mind that children this age need at least ten hours of sleep each night.
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Enhancing Your Child's Self Esteem
Being a parent is no easy task. There is so much to do, so much to be concerned about. "Am I raising my children good enough?" "Should I enforce more rules on them?" "Am I punishing them too harshly?" The worries of whether we are being good parents go on and on. Unfortunately, all you can do is your very best.
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Dealing With Your Child's Imaginary Friend
Does your child have an imaginary friend? Are you concerned that this may be unhealthy? Parents tend to worry a bit about their child when one day they come to us and talk about their "imaginary friend".
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Deciding On A Preschool For Your Child
Are you a parent who is wondering whether sending your child to preschool is necessary or not? Parents who stay at home often feel pressured to send their kids to preschool since most professionals generally recommend doing so. In addition to that pressure, parents who keep their children home until elementary school sometimes face the disapproval of their friends or other family members that may have kids of their own.
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'More Reading, Less Television' For Your Child's Intellectual Growth
Children's TV habits are as varied as they are impatient. Some become bored after fifteen minutes and play regardless of whether the TV is on or not. Others enter an altered state, becoming oblivious to the world around them. There are good reasons for being concerned about the amount of time young children spend in front of the TV, and parents shouldn't hesitate to set limits on what, and how much, children watch.
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Supporting Your Child During The Initial Week Of Preschool
Are you a parent who is soon to send your 2 -3 year-old child off to a day care center or a nursery class during the week? This is a time when both you and your child will face the issues of separation and independence, which is perfectly normal. A child that is at the age of four or five years old will probably go off without much difficulty, but many children under the age of three have a very hard time with leaving their parents.
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Helping Your Children Learn From Punishments
With regards to punishment, there are many techniques that a successful parent can use when teaching their children the lessons of life. Punishment itself is not a negative item when it comes to parenting. However, there are still some parents who feel bad when they administer punishment, and end up not following up with their promise to discipline their children.
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Determining Hyperactive Disorder In Your Child
Are you concerned that your child may be too hyperactive and may have a condition that needs medical attention? Almost every child these days will have times when they seem hyperactive. The good news is that it is perfectly normal for children to be nervously wound up and excited. However, for one out of twenty children under the age of twelve, there exists a condition which causes them to be so hyperactive and easily distracted that they will need medical attention. Physicians call this condition APHD, which stands for "attention deficit hyperactivity disorder".
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Helping Your Child Cope With Grief And Loss
For a young child, the loss of a parent is an overwhelming crisis, impossible to understand. Children under five cannot grasp the permanence of death. Because of this, the first stage of grief is often a period of protest and hope that the lost parent will return. Many children will try to use fantasy to make this happen, imagining the missing parent in familiar situations or places.
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Instilling Life Values In Your Children
As parents, one of your main objectives to raising healthy minded and goal oriented children is to give them a sense of purpose in life. Many people may disagree about whether or not purpose in life can be found through employment or leisure activities, but few will debate the necessity for living life with a feeling of purpose and meaning.
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Showering Your Child With Love And Encouragement
Is your child constantly seeking your attention? Do you find yourself being asked non-stop by your child to check out every move they make? Even in the car, kids will ask Mommy and Daddy to turn around to look at something that they are drawing, or at something passing by, or a funny face he is making, etc.
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If your child is approaching being overweight or already has too many pounds, then a first step is to distinguish between a real overweight problem and plumpness, and your pediatrician can help you to do this. With children, it's important to focus on good health, not appearance. Avoid suggesting that your child will "look better" if he loses weight. A child quickly assumes this means that there is something "wrong" with the way he looks now, and your disapproval can be just as devastating as being teased by peers.
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Opting For Displinary Alternatives
"I have attempted to do everything that I can to get my oldest son to stop hitting his other kids. Sometimes he even hits me. Then I only get angrier. Punishing my son doesn't seem to work and my last alternative is to spank him. And when I do spank him and make him apologize, he's back hitting the very next day!"
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Explaining AIDS To Your Children
If you are like most parents, then discussing sexual transmitted diseases with your children is not really at the top of the list of comforting topics to talk about, especially when it comes to AIDS. However, it should not surprise you that kids are very much aware of this disease. They hear adults and teachers talk about it at school. Other children are also talking about AIDS back and forth with each other from what they hear of it. Television and radio are constantly promoting ads to help those people who have AIDS. Magazines and newspapers run articles and ads on the subject over and over again. Children know that AIDS can be very dangerous and that patients with this disease die. But because your children may not know exactly where AIDS comes from or how to get it, they are mystified by the disease, and perhaps very scared of it as well.
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Communicating To Your Children About Sex
The one subject to talk about with your child that makes even the most attentive and successful of parents uneasy, is the one about sex. It is the last thing that we ever want to discuss with our kids as they are reaching those awkward teenager years, yet it is the most important subject that can be paid attention to when raising children.
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Choosing A Good Pediatrician For Your Children
If you are looking for information on how to choose a good pediatrician for your family then you have come to the right place. Throughout our website we discuss every possible variable about successful parenting and knowing how to find a decent and professional pediatrician is at the top of the list.
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Anger Management While Handling Children
Are you a parent who would like to know why you cannot seem to get your children to listen to you after they have made a mistake or have done something wrong by breaking the family rules? Do you try to fix every problem as soon as it happens, on the spot, while still steaming with anger inside?
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Interacting With Your Children
Have you ever considered your children to be young people who are already somebody special in that they are whole and complete? In other words, do you look at your child as somebody who will need years and years of growing to do before they are "complete" people, both mentally and physically, or do you see them as perfect beings just the way they are?
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Tips To Raising Healthy Children
Being a successful parent means taking the time to understand what our kids need in order to be self confident, happy, and living a life of well-being.
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Tips On Helping Your Child With Homework
Does your child's homework cause both you and your kid stress every time it must be done? Is your child battling you when you try to get him do his homework?
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Why Being Angry At Our Children's Bad Behavior Does Not Work
You will find it interesting that the parent who is most anxious to avoid conflict and confrontation in their lives often finds himself screaming and threatening and ultimately thrashing their children. Indeed, child abuse may be the end result. This leads us to the most common error in disciplining children, and perhaps the most costly. We are referring to the inappropriate use of anger in attempting to control boys or girls.
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Walking To School: Safety Precautions Every Child Should Know
If your child walks to and from school, the following tips will help you encourage her budding independence while keeping her safe.
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Riding The School Bus: 11 Ways To Insure Your Child's Safety
The school bus is a safe means of transportation for your kids when going to school, but accidents with school buses can and do happen. Every year, some nine thousand children are injured and thirty-five are killed in school bus accidents. Most of these accidents happen when children are outside of the bus and hit by a passing vehicle or the school bus itself. You can protect your child by taking some of the following precautions, depending on your child's age and experience.
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Preventing Violent Child Behavior
The best way to prevent violent behavior is to give your child a stable, secure home life with firm, loving discipline and full-time supervision during the toddler and preschool years. Everyone who cares for your child should agree on the rules he's expected to observe as well as the response to use if he disobeys. Whenever he breaks an important rule, he should be reprimanded immediately so that he understands exactly what he's done wrong.
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Learn How To Recognize Your Child's Level Of Self-Esteem
When you make a conscious choice to insure that your kid's needs for belonging, uniqueness, power, and expression are truly being met, you will find some amazing changes occurring in a relatively short time. It's never too late to start. Don't think for a minute that because your children are already teenagers, it's too late. That's simply not true. It's never too late to help change their self-image and to change the dynamics of the family.
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Learn How To Discipline The Problematic, Hyperactive Child
It is often assumed that an excessively active child should be indulged, simply because he has a physical problem. But that is not the best approach to take. In fact, every youngster needs the security of defined limits, and the hyperactive boy or girl is no exception. Such a child should be held responsible for his behavior, like the rest of the family. Of course, your level of expectation must be adjusted to fit his limitations. For example, most children can be required to sit in a chair for disciplinary reasons, whereas the hyperactive child would not be able to remain there. Similarly, spankings are sometimes ineffective with a highly excitable little bundle of electricity. As with every aspect of parenthood, disciplinary measures for the hyperactive child must be suited to his unique characteristics and needs.
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Keeping Your Child Out Of Gangs
If you fear that your child may be at risk of becoming part of a gang in your community, take action before he becomes immersed in that lifestyle. You may have more power over your child than you think. Your role is particularly necessary if he does not appreciate the risks of being in a gang. The following strategies are especially important to pursue if you live in an area with a high level of gang activity.
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Does Your Child Have Severe Problems With Anger, Biting, & Hitting?
We all have feelings of anger and aggression, and so does your child. These impulses are normal and healthy. As a toddler or preschooler, your youngster may lack the self-control to express his anger peacefully. Instead, he may naturally lash out, perhaps hitting or biting in frustration. When this happens, he needs you to take control for him and to help him develop judgment, self-discipline, and the other tools he needs in order to express his feelings in more acceptable ways.
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Children Need That Loving Touch
Children need to be touched and hugged on a more regular basis. They need at least four hugs a day for survival, really! If you want your kids to thrive, make sure that they get hugged a lot.
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Building Our Children's Self-Esteem: Are Parents Sending Mixed Messages?
Most of us grew up with parents and other significant adults who denied the intensity or the very existence of our feelings. They would say, "You've no reason to be so upset," "It can't be that bad," or "You're making a mountain out of a mole-hill." For those of us who were raised in homes where emotions were considered to be the enemy and to be avoided at all cost, it is not surprising that feelings still are a mystery to us now that we ourselves have become parents.
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A Psychological Look At Why Children Act Out With Bad Behavior
In our efforts to understand the strong-willed, difficult child, we must ask ourselves why he or she is so fond of conflict. If given the opportunity to choose between war and peace, most of us would prefer tranquility. Yet the tough-minded kid goes through life like a runaway lawn mower. He'll chew up anything that gets in his way. The taller the grass, the better he survives and thrives. What makes him like that? What drives him to challenge his mother and defy his father? They are not his enemies. Why would he resist their loving leadership from the earliest days of childhood? Why does he seem to enjoy irritating his siblings and goading his neighbors? Why does he throw erasers when his teachers turn their backs and why won't he do his homework? Indeed, why can't he be like his compliant brothers and sisters?
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16 Ways To Discourage Your Child From Smoking
On average, youths who smoke have their first cigarette at the age of thirteen. This means that you need to make your views about smoking clear to your child from an early age.
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10 Ways Your Child's School Can Monitor & Prevent Bullying
Bullying in schools is not just a problem for its victims, it makes all students feel unsafe. Schools must make it clear that student safety is an essential part of their mission by sending a strong message that bullying will not be tolerated and enlisting the support of the students.
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10 Ways You Can Help Your Child Cope With Peer Pressure
Standing up to peer pressure is one of the greatest challenges that children face. Many are unable to stand up to the challenge and are led into participating in risky or even illegal activities.
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10 Water & Swimming Safety Tips For Your Children
Water is one of the most ominous hazards your child will encounter. Young children can drown in only a few inches of water, even if they've had swimming instructions. Though swimming classes for young children are widely available, the American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend them for children under four.
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Your Child's Asthma: 6 Preventative Tips
Your child's Asthma is characterized by his or her constant wheezing, which is due to spasm of the muscles in the small air passages in the lungs (bronchospasm). This spasm makes it difficult for the child to get the air out of his lungs once he has taken it in. The lungs become overinflated and the chest expands, sounding like a drum when you tap it. The wheezing is the sound you hear when the air is being pushed out.
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Teaching Your Child How To Spend His Money Wisely
Parents want their child to handle his own money responsibly. They want him to plan ahead, spend wisely, and save for the future. Most 10 to 13-year-olds, however, are less interested in being responsible than in buying what they want. This causes a dilemma for many parents. They know their child should make decisions and learn from his own mistakes, yet they want to keep him from wasting his money. These conflicting aims make it hard for parents to be consistent.
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Setting Aside More Time For Your Children
Families always seem to be busy. Parents' weekdays are filled with work, appointments, carpools, chores, errands, and volunteer projects. Weekends, rather than being relaxing, are times for shopping, driving to children's activities, laundry, household repairs, and paying bills.
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Managing Your Child's Behavior Through Positive Reinforcement
Ever hear the term the "terrible-twos"? Who hasn't, right? Those poor two-year-olds have had a bad rap. It's not enough that they've spent the last two years learning to talk so they can yell right in the middle of any important situation you may be in: "Mommy, I went poop!" They've also learned to walk in front of cars in the parking lot, run from us at bedtime - and their manual dexterity is great. (They practice it all the time as they peel off all the labels on your canned goods.) Two year olds aren't really that bad. Kids at any age can seem difficult if they aren't managed the right way. They're out of control.
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How To Keep Your Kids Out Of Trouble
Kids love attention, and they'll get it anyway they can. If they can't get your attention by doing good things, they'll get it by doing things they know are wrong. If the only time you acknowledge that your kids are around is when they do something wrong, they'll continue to do wrong things. To a child, negative attention is better than no attention. This is very important, so repeat that again: Negative attention is better than no attention.
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How To Get Your Child To Do Chores
Parents feel frustrated when they have to tell their child over and over to help around the house. They know that what they're asking (take out the trash, set the table, rake the leaves, etc.) is minimal compared to the full adult responsibility of running a household. They also know how much time they spend meeting their child's needs, driving her to special activities, shopping for her clothes, and preparing for her friends' visits.
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How Giving Your Child Positive Rewards Is The Best Parenting System
The most important technique in teaching desirable behavior is known as the "positive reward system". You have probably seen trained animal acts such as dolphins, elephants, and bears at amusement parks like Sea World or the circus. But you may not be aware of how the animals are taught to do their tricks.
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Can Parent's Be Both The Boss & The Buddy To Their Children?
Being able to balance being the 'boss' as well as your child's 'buddy' is absolutely necessary for a healthy parent child relationship. Some experts teach that we should always be the boss and never play the role of buddy. Others suggest that your son or daughter should be your best friend. Both extremes are unhealthy. Your child should never be in doubt as to who is the boss.
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Assisting Your Child's Experience With Divorce
Parents don't want the breakup of their marriage to harm their child. Before divorce, many parents seek advice from a family therapist about minimizing their child's suffering. During and after the divorce, most parents' love and concern for their child remains unchanged. Yet the stress of divorce can be so intense that parents eventually find it hard to keep concentrating on their child's needs.
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Well, the big day has arrived. Son or daughter is about to spend his or her first day at preschool. Is your child nervous or fearful? Well, that's natural. Here are some suggestions about how to make that first time a little less worrisome.
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Sometimes a child labeled 'difficult' is just expressing a healthy need for independence. But in other cases, the label is actually too mild. Adults can be violent, irresponsible, indifferent to the harm they do others and typically that behavior begins in childhood.
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All parents wish they could shelter their child from grief. No one wants a child, with limited experience and understanding, to have to suffer through the loss of a beloved dog or the death of a treasured parent or grandparent.
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Few things have changed so radically in the last 100 years as the view of a father's role in parenting.
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Few things in the life of a family are as traumatic as when it alters through divorce. Each individual involved is often confused, angry, feeling betrayed and uncertain about what comes next.
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For children who have attended preschool, beginning school will involve less of a transition than for those who have not. But in either case, school is typically quite different from preschool. Added to that is the unfortunate fact that many public schools are often - whether through lack of funding, bureaucratic bungling, bad philosophy or factors outside their control - far less than ideal places to educate children.
