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Sleep like a baby. Actually, sleep near a baby. The benefits of co-sleeping are sometimes far overlooked amid the hyped up fears of lack of privacy, interrupted nights, and dangers of bed-sharing (which is different from co-sleeping and not as dangerous as critics say). I never set out a formal plan with my first child to use attachment parenting techniques, and never envisioned co-sleeping. Then I actually became a parent and the benefits of co-sleeping were too real to ignore.

My daughter was a colicky baby, and truly needed to be near us as she slept, so we backed into co-sleeping as a way to make sure we could all get a decent night’s rest. When she turned 2 and got her big girl bed, she decided that she preferred to sleep in it, in her own room – yes the transition really happened that easily. Then the boys came along.

A sleeping bag at the foot of the bed wrapped my toddler like a cocoon, and a bassinet just a step away from my bed cradled my infant son as he sighed peacefully in his sleep. Occasionally my 4 year-old son would drag his blanket into the room and silently curl up next to his 2 year-old brother on the floor. Not to mention my 6’ tall husband slumbering by my side. Yes – the accommodations were crowded, but the rewards of co-sleeping for my family were numerous, and I believe still evident today. And despite the slight claustrophobia I felt at times, the unorganized assembly of blankets and pillows, and the strange looks and rude comments I received from people, I would use co-sleeping habits again with my children, and recommend it to other parents.

What is co-sleeping?

Co-sleeping has varying definitions depending upon which proponent or critic you hear describe it, but in general it is the close sleeping arrangement between parents and their young children. In co-sleeping there is a close proximity of parents and children, but most often the children and parents sleep on separate surfaces.

Co-sleeping can be

• a bassinet or crib near the parent’s bed
• a mattress or sleeping bag on the parent’s floor for toddlers/preschoolers
• a “side-car” sleeper which is basically a crib with 3 walls, and the 4^th side is adjacent to the parent’s bed (without a gap between mattresses)
• children sharing a room for sleeping

Sometimes the term co-sleeping is used when the term family bed is a more appropriate description. Family bed, or bed sharing, is the general practice of children routinely sharing the same bed as their parents, most often directly going to sleep and staying asleep in that same bed.

What are the benefits of co-sleeping?

• If you are a breastfeeding mom, you don’t have to go far to have your infant near your side to feed him or her. Side-car sleepers are great for this as well.
• You can respond to your children’s needs easily and quickly. I could hear my newborn rooting around in his crib, waking for his next feeding, but I didn’t have to wait until he was wide awake and crying to know I needed to attend to his needs. This allowed him to go back to sleep so much easier and faster.
• Studies have shown that when an infant sleeps near his mother that his own breathing is regulated, benefiting his overall heart rate and body functions.
• Studies show that co-sleeping reduces the amounts of cortisol, a stress hormone that is released in an infant’s brain. When infants sleep alone they can face separation anxiety and some neurological studies have even shown that being separated from parents has a similar effect to that of physical pain for the infant.
• Studies have shown that room sharing (co-sleeping) has contributed to a reduced number of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) cases.
• Your awareness of your children’s needs is heightened. When my infant son was sleeping peacefully one night in my room something awakened me – some subtle something. I got out of bed and stepped to his cradle, reached down in the dark, and screamed for my husband to turn on the lights. My brain was not prepared for what my hands touched – something wet and convulsing. My baby boy was lying on his back (the recommended sleep position), but covered in his own vomit and quite quietly choking on it. I was able to clear his mouth and his airway and he immediately started crying, a welcome sound. The aspirated vomit did cause pneumonia, but the experience reaffirmed for me why co-sleeping is a valuable and worthwhile choice for parents to make. Had I not been so near to him, I do not believe that I would have been as aware of his immediate, dire needs.

Now our youngest is 8 and my husband and I have regained full ownership of our bedroom. Since they were toddlers and preschoolers our children have all gone to bed without complaint, look forward to reading before bed and the other nighttime rituals, and sleep well through the night. I know so many other parents who have children in preschool and beyond who still have to cajole their children into bed, struggle as they resist, and struggle throughout the night trying to convince their children to remain in their own beds. Co-sleeping really does offer a gentle and gradual way to teach children how to sleep through the night, but more importantly, to teach them that we as parents are paying attention to their needs.

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BetterParenting/~3/Ch69FKVjt0M/

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Is the clutter in your home overwhelming your ability as a family to lead effective, less stressful lives? As busy parents we work to care for our partners and our kids, work as business owners or employees, and manage our homes.

Why Does Home Organization Matter?

Let’s face it – it simply is not fun to chase our children through the house looking for lost assignments, mittens, toys, or sanity because we failed to make home organization a priority. We don’t have to have commercial ready closets and pristine shelves of labeled everything in order to qualify as organized, but taming down the chaotic messes helps our families in several ways:

Saves time – less searching for AWOL items or spending extra time cleaning on the weekends because the mess mounted all week.

Saves money – less buying extras because you lost the first 2, and when you have a more organized approach to your home you truly understand whether or not you even need the first one.

Saves sanity – less stress from wasted time. While it might seem like an overwhelming task to organize a home, begin with a room, or a desk, and you can see that keeping it organized really does help in the long run to reduce family stress.

Tammy Schotzko, owner of We Love Messes, a professional organizing and eco-friendly cleaning service, recently shared with me in an interview some of the obstacles she sees in her profession that keep parents from easier home management. She spoke of the modern dual income families who are becoming more and more popular in numbers, and requiring a different approach to family organization because no longer is one parent the primary source at home for managing a family’s life. Parents have busy lives and busier children’s schedules to manage, and being organized is simply a saner way to live.

Not only will your days be less stressful if your home is more organized, but your children will learn to emulate these behaviors and have the same benefits in their lives. Tammy says that in her professional experiences one of the saddest things she has encountered is walking into a home and seeing the clutter and chaos and realizing that the children just aren’t learning to do anything better because the behaviors are modeled by the parents. When children live with positive routines they are more likely to model those positive behaviors and in turn behave more positively because they know what to expect.

How Can Families Become More Organized?

• Start young – even toddlers can learn to pick up their toys, put their dirty laundry in the hamper, and participate in the home’s care.
• Be consistent – develop routines that are easy for the kids to remember. If organizing does not come naturally to you, start small and build from there so you and your family members don’t feel overwhelmed.
• Share the load – as Tammy spoke about it with me, kids will be very comfortable letting you do the work if that is what you teach them to expect. If we enable them to create messes (and messes are more than tangible disasters in toy boxes) because we don’t enforce the routines and plans, they won’t learn to do anything else.

Tammy also shared these 3 top tips for parents who are working to create more organization in their homes, and lives. (these are right from Tammy, the organizing horse’s mouth)

1. Make your bed every morning. Crazy, right? Hear me out – it starts your morning with a positive note of accomplishment, it instantly de-clutters the space, AND it’s a great habit to model for your kids. It’s such a small, simple thing, but it has far reaching impact.
2. A place for everything, and everything in its place. Yes, putting things away takes more effort than setting it down with the intention to come back to it, but setting it down “to put away later” is how piles and clutter begins. If you don’t have a place for everything, maybe you have too many things…our space defines what we can have, not the other way around. There isn’t a closet system around that can fit 50 pairs of shoes in a closet that only has space for 25, I don’t care how creative you are!
3. Routines. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they are essential – kids are less demanding if they know what is expected of them.

What Challenges Do Families Face When Getting Organized?

In her profession, Tammy sees what most of us can probably relate to on some level – “family buy in” – where the brunt of the family responsibilities fall on one parent’s shoulders – often the mom’s. The family buys into the idea that Mom can do it all, often because Mom tries to fit that unrealistic mold.  Both Mom and Dad need to be in agreement on the expectations of the children’s contributions to maintaining the household, and both parents need to follow through on making sure those expectations are upheld.

Tammy also shared with me other obstacles she sees keeping parents from getting and staying organized.

Time
We just can’t get more than 24 hours in a given day. We need to make more efficient use of the time we have, and even though getting organized might feel too time consuming, being organized really does save us time.

“Must haves”
For new parents it might be the gadgets that they think babies need, which ends up being stuff that floats around the house unused, and worse yet, maybe saved for the next baby to not really need.

Growing stuff
It might sound like a science experiment, but growing stuff is what happens when our kids continually accumulate more toys, art supplies, video games, and whatever tiny, plastic thing you will step on in the middle of the night, without us helping them purge those unused items.

If you’re still feeling overwhelmed about a chaotic and unorganized home, take a deep breath and start small. Tammy shared with me these two specific tips for organizing with your kids (and they don’t require a ton of time or resources).

1. Organize school papers – and start in preschool! Tammy recommends using a durable bin or storage container that kids can use to put their saved schoolwork in throughout the year. At the end of each year, have the kids go through the bins and save what they want – give them ownership.
2. Use a family calendar. In Tammy’s home this is a dry erase board where every Sunday each member of the family (her kids are 13 17) is responsible for writing down their weekly schedule, all color coded. In my family it is a monthly wall calendar where each member of the family has his or her own column, and family members add their activities. As my husband says – if it’s not on the calendar, it isn’t happening! There is no efficient way our family of 6 could operate without a clear and consistent way to organize and appreciate everyone’s schedules. You can use a dry erase board, a formal calendar, or print your own – but creating a family calendar is an easy way to help everyone in the home stay on track.

On those days when I feel overwhelmed, I might want to stick my head in the proverbial sand, but I usually start by cleaning my kitchen. I am far from a neat freak (wink to Tammy!), but I have learned that ownership and responsibility start in my own home, with me, if I ever hope to pass those lessons along to my children. Special thanks to Tammy Schotzko for taking the time to answer some questions about home and family organization!

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BetterParenting/~3/5y4XfRJ9ztY/

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Do you love your family? So many of us immediately answer with an emphatic YES!, but fail to always act like it or know how to show it. Family date nights are important for reaffirming to your family how much your relationships matter, and help build stronger family bonds. Especially during busy and hectic times, between baseball practices, music lessons, and homework, it is so vital for parents to take the lead and institute family time together.

Building Strong Families

Research has shown that strong families are built on foundations of several different constructs, including:

• Open communication
• Atmosphere of encouragement and appreciation
• Religious roots
• Ability to adapt to changes and face challenges
• Time together

These constructs don’t simply come together because we all live under the same roof or share the same last name. Strong, healthy families are built when attention is paid to all of these important areas, and family date nights are fun ways to accomplish this.

Fun, Easy, Family Date Night Ideas

Family date nights can (and should) begin when children are young, and they don’t have to be extravagant or expensive. Set aside at least one night each month for family date nights, but once a week is even better.

Family Restaurant

We’ve heard it before that eating together as a family is vitally important to building strong families, but use this twist for a family date night. Imagine that your family owns its own restaurant – would it be an Italian diner, specialize in Asian cuisine, or an old fashioned cafe? Create a menu together as a family, and give the kids the tasks of decorating the dining room to reflect the restaurant style. Shop together for the ingredients, cook the food together, don’t forget to throw on some music that matches your theme, and enjoy your meal (and just as in a family restaurant – everyone helps with cleanup!)

Treasure Hunt

Put together a treasure hunt where the entire family has to work together to solve clues and locate the treasure, which could be anything from a new DVD to watch together, a board game, or a family photo album. Your clues can lead family members around the house or through an entire park, depending on ages and patience levels, and could even incorporate GPS coordinates for those tweens and teens. Working together to solve problems is an extremely valuable family tool, and treasure hunts are fun ways to practice group problem solving skills.

Picture Perfect Family

Grab a digital camera and head to some of your favorite family locations for group pictures. If time permits, have each child choose a location that is special to him or her – maybe for your son it is the ballpark where he saw his first baseball game with the family, or for your daughter it is where you always used to go as a family for picnics. Use a timer setting or find an obliging stranger to take a family photo, but also take extra candid shots of the family at the location. If your town has a photo booth have everyone cram inside for some goofy and classic group shots. Then head to the drugstore or take the rest of your digital photos home to print, and then work on a family scrapbook together.

Game Show Challenge

As a family choose a game show to use as a model and create your own family version. This one might take some more planning during weekly dinners together, but the final, fun result will be a great night of family fun. Some fun ones to consider are:

• Family Feud (versions sold in stores so you don’t have to develop your own questions) – just add a host and come up with a fun prize.
• Survivor – develop fun challenges like puzzle solving, 3-legged races, and obstacle courses.
• Amazing Race – Set up a course of challenges for either individuals or teams to complete. These could even be silly tasks like matching Tupperware lids to containers, sorting a huge stack of mismatched socks, or searching through a toy box for a small trinket.

New Adventures

One of the best ways to work together as a family is to try something new. There are two ways you can approach this family date night.

Have each family member take turns introducing the rest of the family to something new that he or she really enjoys. In our family that might be our son taking us mountain biking at a local trail where only he has been, or my daughter teaching us how to run a dog agility course. Letting the kids teach the rest of the family something new emphasizes individuality but promotes family time and learning more about each other.

Do something completely new as a family that you all have been curious about trying. This might be fishing for the first time, taking a martial arts class, or going to a play. Be sure to end the activity talking about what each family member liked and didn’t like about the activity.

The most important thing about family date nights are to start them with a positive attitude and keep trying, even if one is a flop. Your family is worth the effort and your children will appreciate the time and energy you put into the adventures, even if it doesn’t show for another 15 years!

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BetterParenting/~3/cTEJgVwCR8Q/

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I just found this video below and couldn’t help but re-post it for you to see.

It’s called “Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood” and seeks to blame advertising for many of the problems that children in our society are showing today.

And if you take the argument all by itself, then maybe they’re right.  We probably really should be upset about commercials that build strong desire in young girls to buy a ‘Bratz’ doll or something else that represents values that directly counter what we hope our children develop.  So in cases like that I am in complete agreement.

However… the trailer for this documentary also shows a Disney commercial as a case for how commercials ruin children; and I think we step into unfair territory when we don’t separate companies or commercials from those that advertise products with no value, compared to those that deliver value.  I see a lot of people who get on this anti corporation kick hate companies who sell products that have made my life better, or delivered more joy, or created a special family memory for me, which is exactly what Disney has done for my family.

For sure, I don’t like all their shows, nor do I think all of what they do is right for my children.  The Suite Life of Zack Cody is an example.  That show has a lot of really bitchy little rich girls all over it, and I don’t want influencing my young daughters lives at all.  According to research done in a great book called Nurture Shock, a TV show that spends too much time showing bad or in this case, bitchy behavior more then repentance of that behavior, will cause a child who watches that show to start behaving like a bitch.

However, the research also shows that children who watch a show where the character spends most of the show being good and representing good qualities starts to behave BETTER.

This is why I am not one of those raving Anti TV parents who think TV is from the devil.

Do I think their are crappy TV programs that ruin children, yes!  But I also think that their are quality shows that build children up.  And in the case of Disney I think they make a TON of wonderful programs and products.

Just Some Of The Things I’m Thankful To Disney For

• Wonderful family vacation filled with joy that my children still talk about.  Why is it that we hate a company that delivers happiness?
• Allowing me to purchase premium services to make the experience more enjoyable, like their private tour guide service that makes lines shorter but costs $200 an hour.  If you find yourself hating that service because some can afford it and others cannot I’d like to suggest you might have more of a jealousy issue with the person who bought the service then you do with Disney.  Or do you think nobody should have the service if you can’t because it’s not fair?  Is that right for you to think that?  Is it right for you to wish that another family who saved up to pay for that service doesn’t have the right to enjoy it?  hmmmmm….
• Rides that stretched my sons bravery.  If you could ever know one thing about me, its that I value the stretching of my children outside their comfort zone more than just about anyone, and I find rides like ‘The Matterhorn’, ‘Splash Mountain’, and Jack’s Haunted Mansion are wonderful at doing this.

I could go on, but I’ll stop with this final example…

Why I Like My Children Watching Scooby Doo

Recently my son, who loves to watch Scooby Doo everyday decided that he wanted to set a trap like Fred Jones always does in every episode.  So while I was outside lugging in firewood this winter, he snuck a glass out of the cupboard, filled it with soapy water and set it on the counter for me for when I got thirsty.

Sure enough when I came in from packing firewood I was thirsty, and not paying much attention, gladly accepted my son’s glass of water, thinking he was being so kind.  I thought something was odd about his behavior as I lifted the glass to my lips and took that first swig.  And as that soapy water touched my lips and I knew I’d been had, my son exploded in laughter, “I set a trap for you Dad!” he proudly exclaimed.

And sure enough he had, a quite creative trap for a three year old if I do say so myself, and one inspired by Scooby Doo.

That very day I took my son to the hardware store and bought him ‘Trap Stuff’, like rope, wood, rubber bands etc.  And we spent several hours that week making traps.

Here’s the Takeaway

TV creates context for our children constantly.  It is constantly exposing them to new ideas, and if we would just take the one on one time it takes to take that new context TV gives our children and fan the creative ideas that it can create through play then it is NOT bad, and it instead is a tool.

Even when TV drives our children to strongly desire material things like ‘Toys’, it can be used for good.  My mother used the drive that the show ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ created for me to have their action figures, as a tool for teaching me to save money for things I wanted.  I got a nickel per chore as a kid and I remember my brother and I saving for 2-3 months just to buy a $13 action figure as young kids.  Does that make whoever produced that show evil?  Not if a child has a good mother like mine… instead it taught me to delay gratification for things I really wanted, even when I want them VERY badly.

So when I see parents or shows that bitch about children and consumerism, and then want to pass laws to make it illegal I can’t help but think, where are the parents?  Our children are going to grow up and strongly desire things as they grow older, so why can’t we be using the strong desires of our TV programming to create skills for life.  Skills like delaying gratification, savings etc.

If we spent more time trying to hate companies, and did some responsible screening of TV programs, and used the others as tools for developing our children, we’d be better off… I know my kids are.

But that’s enough ranting for today, watch the trailer and tell me what you think:

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BetterParenting/~3/p_9ZgMm5O7w/

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Call me old fashioned, but when I was a kid we went to school to learn. We didn’t get paid for grades, had to attend classes whether we liked them or not, and we just knew it – no bribery needed. As the education system in America has struggled to provide students with first class educations on low-string budgets, a new approach has been emerging. Funding has gotten very creative, including paying students for arriving to school on time, attending classes, behaving at school, getting good grades, and achieving higher than typical test scores.

As communities struggle with increasing drop-out rates and lower than acceptable test scores, the students are the ones who are missing out on their futures. Many schools that are choosing to pay for performances are doing so in desperate attempts to save their students from the dangers of quitting school with a poor quality 9^th grade education. The end goals are to increase graduation rates and test scores, with the attempt to then set students up for more successful futures in either higher education or better paying jobs out of school. But does this really work to meet these end goals?

The Benefits of Paying Students for Their Performances

Families across the country pay their own children for report card performances. Parents search for motivating factors for their children to succeed in school, and have found that money is a great influencer. It indeed might get their attention and motivate them to do better in classes if the payout is large enough and the need is great enough. Generally families with middle to higher levels are the ones offering financial bonuses to their kids, while children from poorer neighborhoods might be the ones left with fewer resources to both succeed in school and have families who pay for grades.

When school boards step up to the plate and decide to offer financial incentives for students’ performances it gets more attention, and the ramifications can be much different. One researcher in particular has been taking a very close look at the strategies used and the outcomes achieved. Harvard economist Roland Fryer Jr. has spent years studying the effects of paying for student performances and has found that if the incentives are designed correctly, the end goals can be reached.

His studies showed that younger students appeared to be the most influenced, and the monetary amount did not have to be as high, but there is no way of knowing if their motivation would continue in later years. When the goals were achievable and clearly and narrowly defined, such as wearing school uniforms each day or not being tardy to class, students knew how to achieve these goals and were therefor successful. The interesting portion is that when the goals were more far-reaching, such as increased standardized test scores, the students didn’t know how to reach those goals so the success rates were lower.

In one test group 2^nd graders were paid to read books, and their reported reading times increased, thus the goal was met. The extra payoff was that the student’s reading scores on future tests were increased. While the over-all goals might be better test scores and increased graduation rates, students don’t have the skills to reach these goals, even when paid for them. They respond much better to smaller, more manageable goals, and even in older populations of students this didn’t always work as hypothesized.

The Dangers of Paying Students for Performances

I am one who believes that true learning cannot be purchased, and that paying students for performances reduces their ability to motivate themselves later in life. The end goals in the short term might be reached, but the long-term success might even be decreased. I am not alone in this viewpoint, as many researchers have long concluded that when we trade (bribe) our children to behave in certain ways, we actually create less motivated and capable people.

One of the criticisms of these types of payment plans for students is that they are even racially motivated, as many programs are done in poorer neighborhoods with higher minority populations. These are where the students who need the most help live. Some have suggested that better parenting incentives might be the more effective and efficient plan in the long run, but the problem still remains: the education system is not developed for supporting struggling families and their students.

Paying for grades is one way to improve the numbers, but does it improve the future for the people? Yes, the job of a child is to get an education, but not all jobs should be compensated for monetarily, especially if we are seeking real results. I consider it my job to be a good parent and community member. If someone started to pay me for these performances, wouldn’t we question the validity of my job and of my motivations? We are missing the difference between actually doing a good job, versus getting the job done.

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BetterParenting/~3/G8jcI_-pGoU/

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There are those little girls who sneer “You can’t play with me today” with disdain in their voices. And there are those little girls with aching hearts who hear those words and shrink back from their peers, unsure of what just happened. Mean girls are infiltrating our daughter’s classes, clubs, and neighborhoods, and they are often led by their parents. Girls learn and display these behaviors as young as preschool ages and they are often the direct result of negative parenting strategies being used.

These subtle acts of bullying – formally known as relational aggression – are mean behaviors that target individuals or social groups. It is the gossip that is spread, the kids who face social exclusion, and the negative control that is perpetrated. And it is beginning in preschool with our girls and growing with them as they move into high school and beyond.

New research shows that relational aggression behaviors form in the early years, in children as young as 3 to 5 years of age. In younger children the aggression is quite direct, with little girls saying things like “I don’t want you coming to my house” or “Your hair is greasy and it smells, so I don’t want to sit next to you.” As harsh as these words are, the pain mean girls can cause as they get older gets deeper, because sadly, they get better at manipulating the situations and disguising their mean streaks. 

Who are the mean girls?

• They are socially savvy and adept at making friends – when they want to do so.
• They can be popular, often because they are intimidating and other girls don’t want to dare to cross them.
• They can be manipulating.
• They know how to sting with words with as much pain as a punch delivers.
• They can be the preschooler next door. Research shows that girls even as young as 3 can use peer pressure to get their ways.
• They often learn these tactics from their mothers and fathers.
• Research shows that mean girls are more likely to have parents who use psychological control and manipulative tactics in discipline. These parents also use negative forms of communication, such as avoiding eye contact, laying guilt trips, and withdrawing their acts and words of love in order to elicit the behavior they want in their children.

Why are mean girls dangerous?

Relational aggression is not as obvious as the boy who throws a punch on the playground or the girl who kicks a rival classmate. It is emotional and psychological bullying, and it can be just as damaging as physically aggressive behaviors. Sometimes relational aggression can be even more damaging as it is not recognized as much as other negative behaviors, but it still has long lasting effects.

Research shows that girls who are picked on as children by other girls can suffer anxiety and depression and that it can stay with them for years to come, even into adulthood. Maybe this explains why I still remember one particular mean girl from my childhood, who could cut through your confidence with words laced in thorns.

Advances in technology also make it easier for mean girls to perpetrate their harsh words and actions. The covertness and subtle ways they have mastered as manipulators is even more powerful when it comes from behind the veiled curtain of the internet, where everything is not as it seems.

How can parents help their daughters face mean girls?

• Keep an open line of communication so that your daughter can talk with you about her experiences.
• Teach your daughter different ways to approach mean girls – ignoring the words and behaviors, countering those behaviors with resiliency, and aligning themselves with positive friends.
• Teach your daughter to take back her own identity. Mean girls often hurt others in order to control a reaction or a situation, so if the reaction is lost, the motivation for hurting is also removed.
• Let your daughter know if she doesn’t know how to handle the situation that you are there to help her.
• Encourage your child to participate in activities where you know there isn’t a history of relational aggression.

Researcher Dianna Murray-Close is working on an initiative that would bring education to classrooms to counteract relational aggression. She feels that the key is to changing the context of the situations. Mean girls are much less likely to be mean if their social payback is removed. It needs to be uncool to use relational aggression, and kids need to feel empowered to walk away from it with confidence instead of in fear. Parents also need to learn more about how their own interactions with their children can inadvertently teach them to be mean, and we need to move away from a place where this is viewed as tough and cool.

The other evening I saw a sweet, outgoing young girl be slapped with the spirit of a mean girl. The kind who says, “You can’t play with me” without any real reason why. My heart ached, as I recalled that mean girl from my own girlhood. The older I get, however, I realize what I hope this sweet young girl will soon too see – those mean girls are the friends you won’t miss, and the pain they cause you is more about how horrible they are feeling on the inside than about what they really think of you.

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BetterParenting/~3/vmSh1sesvv0/

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Have you ever walked down the toy aisle and felt swallowed by the colors, brands, and gadgets? After parenting for more than 20 cumulative toddler and preschool years (gulp) and now shopping for toys for nieces and nephews, there are 7 types of toys I reach for when adding to the toy box collection (and none of them require batteries).

1. Blocks – Wooden, plastic, interlocking, or even rubber, blocks are timeless toys. Even extremely young children benefit from these types of toys, and many sizes and models available are safe from choking hazards. Just check for content (paint, finishes, etc.) if the child in your life will be spending just as much time chewing on them as building with them. Kids can use them for experimentation with balance, coordination, and building. If you’re giving blocks as gifts you don’t have to worry about matching sets, either, as blocks of varying sizes and styles will give more options for building creativity.

2. Puppets – There is something magical that happens when a child slides her hands into a puppet or pulls the strings that move the limbs of the marionette. Puppets become extensions of the imaginations of children. Through puppetry children develop better understandings of characters – supplying voices and actions that match characteristics. Puppetry also helps children develop storytelling capabilities, which are important pre-reading skills.

• A simple sock can be a great first puppet.
• Paper lunch bags are easy foundations for kids to create their own characters.
• Finger puppets require little coordination and are often inexpensive.
• Kids can decorate cardboard boxes and create their own puppet theatres.
• Take your kids to watch puppet shows.
• Look into community education classes that offer puppetry. Even our younger children learned from a ventriloquist and puppeteer how to bounce puppets along to music.

3. Puzzles – These toys may be old school, but puzzles are amazing learning toys that offer opportunities for children to understand spatial relationships and develop hand eye coordination. Puzzles also teach children about relationships – parts of whole pictures, pattern recognitions, and subtle color changes are all parts of puzzles.

• 3-D puzzle toys like shape sorters and stackers are great beginner puzzles for toddlers.
• Wooden and durable plastic puzzles have longer shelf life for the wear and tear toddlers can put them through so are more worth the investment.
• As toddlers grow into preschoolers they can develop dexterity by creating their own puzzles. Give kids magazine pictures, calendar photos, or the backs of cereal boxes and let them cut them out in various shapes to make their own puzzles.

4. Cups, buckets, funnels, and scoopers – Basically – the contents of your kitchen cupboard! I have never purchased as many sets of measuring cups and spoons as I did when my kids were toddlers. These can go from the bathtub to the sandbox to a dish bin of rice or beans. When kids get to experiment with these things they are able to develop the very beginning of their measuring skills.

• Save the measuring scoops that come in packaged food – they make great mini-measuring cups for little hands.
• When you wash the dishes bring the stool over and let your little one experiment with the water in the sink by running it through funnels.
• Keep a sand bucket full of scoops and funnels for the sandbox and beach. Larger scoops also make great snow-fort making tools.

5. Balls – So many times you just don’t see little girls playing with soccer balls or footballs, and they are missing out on the fun and easy ways that balls can help develop motor skills. Rubber beach balls, tennis balls, soccer balls, and whiffle balls are just some of the different kinds that can give your child hours of fun.

• Play soft toss catch with your toddler.
• Use buckets or bins for throwing aim and empty boxes for kicking goals.
• Use balls and empty milk or juice jugs for living room bowling.
• We love conversation balls that help draw our boys into important conversations while they are playing.

6. Musical instruments – And by this I use the term musical loosely, as for many toddlers and preschoolers they are just noise makers. Noisemakers, nonetheless, are great ways for kids to experiment with sound. Simple plastic flutes, kazoos, harmonicas, maracas, triangles, and drumming sticks are inexpensive ways to provide your kids with musical outlets.

• Empty paper-towel holders filled with beans or rice and sealed with heavy duty tape make great rainmakers.
• Give your kids empty shoe boxes and a stack of rubber bands in various widths and circumfrances and have them make their own guitars. They will find that the tighter the rubber band, the higher the pitch.
• Coffee cans with lids make instant and effective drums.

7. Anything with wheels – Wagons, cars, trucks, and trains are all toy box essentials. They teach children about travel, motion and friction, and imaginative play.

• Make ramps with anything available.
• Experiment with friction – does the train work best on the carpet, tiling, or bath towel?
• Provide giant floor maps and have children “drive” to visit various cities or countries – a geography lesson in disguise.

Sure – we could buy our children new toys every week and probably not exhaust the options on the store shelves. However, as anyone who has watched a child open a gift on Christmas has probably seen, sometimes the boxes are just as much fun to play with as the contents. When we surround our kids with options for creative and active play, instead of passive toys that do the work for them, we can save a few bucks in the toy store and give our kids hours of mind-growing fun. The best toys for toddlers and preschoolers are the ones that don’t require batteries – just imagination and tiny fingers and toes for operating.

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Raising Children with Dignity

Tags: dignity, honor, integrity, parenting styles, parenting with dignity

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Changing dirty diapers, wiping mashed bananas from the walls, and crawling along the cracker-dusted floor like a crocodile with your preschooler probably doesn’t seem very dignified. But consider a different idea of what it means to parent with dignity, and how that approach can positive impact your children’s lives. The dictionary defines dignity as “the quality or state of being worthy, honored, or esteemed.” How does dignity impact the lives of us as parents? For me personally it means:

• I strive to be worthy of mothering my children. I want to raise children who feel worthy of love and respect and give those things to others.
• I am honored to be a mother. I want to use that honor to instill a sense of honor in my children so that they honor others, themselves, and their faith.
• I hold my children with esteem. I want them to treat others with esteemed regard.

Neither the recent tirade of a daughter who complained in great detail on a social media page about her parents and her life or the reaction of her father who shot her laptop and posted that video and his own rant online seem to contain much dignity. But these things rarely come to a breaking point over one instance, and emphasize the idea that dignified parenting needs to begin when our children are infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, instead of waiting until they explode with an online rant on their social media pages.

A book by Mac Bledsoe entitled Parenting with Dignity: The Early Years, intends to give parents the tools they need to build the foundation for a lifetime of families filled worthiness, honor, and esteem for each other. The ideas behind the book is simple in words, but for some reason much harder for parents today to put into action.

• There are no shortcuts in parenting. If you want to develop specific characteristics and behaviors in your children, you must be willing to make the efforts and take the time to teach them.
• “You do not build smooth roads, you teach them to negotiate rough terrain.”
• You have to be proactive and develop a parenting plan, and stop just reacting to your child’s behaviors.

Bledsoe writes that these important parenting methods are best supported by 5 rules for parents of children ages 2-6 years of age (but which are valuable to all parents).

1. Tell your kids what you want them to do! Explain the desired behaviors in ways your kids can understand and demonstrate for them what you mean.
2. Criticize the behavior, not the person. Correcting children is a necessary component of parenting, but it is important to distinguish between admonishing the act and demeaning the child.
3. Don’t assume they learned it: repeat it! Make sure that you give your children time to practice – everything from tying shoes to getting dressed in the morning.
4. What they say to themselves is what counts. Bledsoe reiterates this point by writing “Self-motivation is the only true motivation.” Empowering our children to be positive thinkers will give them the strength to be patient and persevere when faced with challenges.
5. Send a constant message of love. Love comes in many forms, and our children all have their own needs and preferences for receiving love. We can love our children with words, actions (like playing their favorite game with them), by listening to them, and by being present in their everyday lives.

Images of the parent who shot his daughter’s laptop and ranted about her online keep flashing through my mind. I get the frustration, I understand the emotions, but I can’t reconcile the approach with the net result. Just like spanking, the immediate result of “shock discipline” might be reached, but the long-term implications are rarely positive.

I guess in a strange way I can thank that California father for sharing his discipline worldwide for it reaffirmed for me that while our children make mistakes, our reactions to those mistakes are so much more important. I want to parent with dignity. It is not always easy, especially as I venture down the tumultuous teenage road, but it is worth it.

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The Lessons a Laptop Shooting Parent Can Teach Us

Have you heard about the one where the father shoots up the computer like a cowboy shoots up a saloon? While it might seem like a Wild West justice system, a father from California is either being hailed a hero for teaching his daughter a lesson or a criminal for verbally abusing and threatening his teenage daughter. And just like the Wild West days where it sometimes seemed hard to tell if the punishment fit the crime and where guns were used as mouthpieces, the video this father posted on YouTube is sparking a debate about parenting teenagers in what seems to me to be cowboy parenting.

The background to the video is a rebellious 15 year old who wrote a disrespectful letter about her parents and shared it online. The cowboy, err – father, responded by posting a rebuttal that ended with him shooting her laptop with a handgun. Listening to the contents of the letter written by the teen made me cringe. I have my own daughter near that age and I would be heartbroken and infuriated at the same time if she had those feelings and made them known to the world in an effort to drive the pain home. I also know that my own teenage daughter would be forever changed if I took the same actions as that father, and not for the better.

I understand the frustration that can build when children just don’t seem to understand, and I share the sentiment that children today seem to carry an air of entitlement, selfishness, and resentment that wasn’t as prevalent in past decades. However, I also have to wonder: what are the dangers of cowboy parenting?

What is cowboy parenting?

Maybe it was the cowboy hat or the dwindling smoke of his cigarette, or even just that I watched too many westerns with my father as a child or heard stories of my great-great uncle riding as a real cowboy, but this video conjures up everything that to me epitomizes cowboy parenting.

• Cowboys had to be tough to survive. So do parents of teenagers.
• Cowboys often used force to get their way. So do some parents.
• Cowboys could be unpredictable. Again…parents.
• Cowboys created and lived by their own rules, often on the fringe of acceptance.
• Cowboys lived by a code of honor that demanded respect, gave it sparingly, and relied on actions instead of words.

Cowboy parenting is having a clear end goal (instead of driving the cattle to market, it is raising the children to adulthood), and using rugged approaches to reach the goal, often with disregard for following social rules but with an air of superiority and might. I don’t want to offend any cowboys here with my stereotyping – like I said – I’m going off of childhood westerns and family history stories. It is simply the image I keep getting in my mind when I think of dramatic parenting types such as that of the laptop assassin.

What does cowboy parenting teach children?

We don’t know for certain what events led to this situation, and there were most likely many precipitating actions and reactions that led to the public display. This child might very well have learned to never again post public rants online or disrespect her parents’ rules and guidelines. The other possibilities are the ones that ones that worry me as a parent. Several themes keep coming to mind when I ask myself the question of what this father’s reaction might have taught his child.

• React to an unloving action by “one-upping” that action.
• Mocking people we love is effective and acceptable to prove our point.
• Solve problems with might, force, and aggression.
• Publically humiliate others in order to get their attention and achieve results.

What other alternatives are there to the tough love of cowboy parenting?

While we don’t know for certain what other methods have been tried in the past, this father did speak of grounding and removing technology privileges (which obviously didn’t do the trick). It is easy to be an armchair quarterback and pass judgments from the sidelines, but this particular incident has touched a nerve among parents and children. Like so many other parents, I have tried to put myself in this father’s position and ask myself would could have been done better.

He claims the problem is she is selfish, which might very well be the case. Take the laptop and the child and have her deliver it to a child who needs one for school but doesn’t have parents to buy one for her. Give the laptop to a child with a parent in the military so that he or she can Skype with a mom or dad who serves overseas. The list of possible ways for the daughter to lose her laptop but give to someone else goes on and on. By giving the daughter a different perspective he could have had the same end result of no laptop in the house, but with an entirely different message.

He was understandably upset about his daughter’s lack of respect of the adults in her life. Respect is not taught by demanding it with tough love. True respect is earned through loving actions, and yes – discipline can be a loving action when used in effective ways.

He was upset about her public humiliation of him, so he proved his point by doing the same in return to her – an eye for an eye – and he more than succeeded his point. The entire world was never aware of her initial rant, but we are all privy to the disagreement now. If you want to teach children how to treat others, leading by example will far outsmart stooping to their levels for true and honest long-term results.

What is the cost of cowboy parenting?

This California daughter might not ever post another status update in her life, or publically humiliate her parents online. She is a teenager, though, and she will most likely make more mistakes, conceivably much worse than airing a selfish complaint letter on a social media site. What happens if she experiments with and starts using drugs? Becomes pregnant? Crashes her mom’s new car? Gets in trouble at school? Commits a crime?

The list of possible teenager mistakes, trials, and misjudgments is long and full of emotion and turmoil. If you as a parent have just set the bar for an online rant as the one in this case, how are you going to discipline your child and redirect her on a better path if you are acting as a cowboy parent? Maybe it is time to put the gun in the holster, get off the horse, and have a long sip of water from the well. Parenting teens is exhaustingly tough. We need to do it with a cool head, a kind heart, and a goal to teach our children to be better. It begins with our actions – not theirs.

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Don’t Choose a Doctor for Your Children

Tags: child’s health, children’s health, choosing a doctor, choosing a pediactrician, healthy kids, medical health

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Anyone who looks at my family’s medical records might think I have a fear of commitment – there are 6 of us and between us we see 4 different doctors, and we’ve “tried on” several more besides. When my children were infants and toddlers I made the call as to who their pediatricians or family doctors were, but as they get older I want them to learn how to manage their own health. They can’t do that if I am making all of the decisions for them and then suddenly setting them free when they turn 18. By encouraging them to find a doctor of their own choosing I want them to learn how to do two specific things:

Learn how to manage their own health as much as possible.

Be comfortable with the physician who provides their care.

Healthcare is such a personal  and integral part of a person’s life. My OB/GYN has seen more parts of me than anyone else, has delivered all of my children, and is someone with whom I feel completely safe and trust with my medical health – but I chose him – no one else chose him for me. Our children have their own personalities and their own ideas about who they feel secure with and why. Some of them might prefer a sense of humor, others might want someone who is never late. Encouraging our children to recognize their own needs and find a way to pursue them extends much beyond their medical health.

How to Help Your Child Choose a Doctor

I’m not saying you should let your child have complete and final call, and you end up driving 2 hours each way to appointments that aren’t covered by insurance. You still get to be the guiding hand, but in a way that allows for your child’s individual needs to be met.

• Begin by having a conversation with your child about why it is important to trust and feel comfortable with a medical caregiver – whether it is a natural path caregiver or pediatrician who studied at 3 elite hospitals. Your child can be the most physically healthy person around, but we can’t predict the health needs of our children. There may come a point in time where your child does need medical care and it is very helpful if your child already feels secure with the person providing the care.
• Talk with your child about what is important to her when it comes to her medical caregiver. My daughter has a female family practice provider, while my oldest son chose a male pediatrician. Gender wasn’t the only thing influencing their decisions. My son – who plays almost any and every sport – has a doctor who specialized in sports medicine.
• Read and review the bios of potential physicians or caregivers with your child. Many hospitals and clinics have these online or in brochures.
• Ask if your clinic has “meet-n-greet” appointments where you have 10 minutes with the doctor just so that your child can meet him or her and go over general questions. Some clinics do this free of charge, or have very inexpensive fees.
• Don’t feel locked into your choice, especially if your insurance allows you to change practitioners.

How to Help Your Kids Take Charge of Their Own Medical Health

When your children are ill are you the kind of parent who gives all of the details to the doctor – providing all of that important information like how much food they are able to eat, what their temperatures have been, and how much they are or aren’t sleeping? I used to be that parent – when my kids couldn’t do it for themselves. Now I see that encouraging my kids to take the lead on their doctor visits not only helps the doctors make better diagnoses, but it teaches my children how to be responsible for their own medical health. My kids know which medications and items they are allergic to and when their last physicals were, but they are also learning how to truly communicate with their medical caregivers.

Before entering the visit, I remind my kids that I want them to do the talking – sharing what their concerns are and describing them to the doctor as completely as possible. It isn’t a time for shrugging shoulders as a response in true teenage fashion.

Sometimes doctors get so used to just asking parents what is going on that they direct them only to the parents. I have found when I enter the exam room with my child that if I look at my child when the doctor asks a question, he can read from my body language that my child can and should be the one to answer.

For my older children I ask if they want me in the exam room or not with them during their visits. As teenagers they are getting old enough to make those decisions and have that privacy.

Even though I encourage my children to take responsibility for their own healthcare, I still reserve the right to fill in some missing blanks and ask my own questions of the doctor. My 10 year old son is about as subtle as you can get, so when I took him in for his last doctor visit he told the doctor “I have a cough that won’t go away.” While that was very true, he failed to mention that the reason (and maybe because I didn’t tell him) I made the appointment was because he told me he didn’t have the energy to go sledding with his friends, something he would normally rush to do. As soon as I told the doctor that key piece of information, she knew it was more than just a cold and paid more attention to his symptoms – which were actually from pneumonia.

We so often want to wrap our children up in security and keep them safe and healthy (bubble wrap comes to mind), but we when do this we can overlook their needs to learn how to become more responsible for their medical health, a lifelong skill that can truly be life changing.

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