Archive for the 'Parenting' Category

The new law reforming federal consumer protections has been hailed as the best improvement in child safety laws since the 1970s. But the law’s protections don’t kick in right away. Here’s how to keep your kids safe right now:

1. Don’t buy toys with rare Earth magnets. These popular toys with super-powerful magnets have killed one child and injured at least 86 others by damaging the children’s intestines after the tiny magnets were swallowed.

Although 8 million of these toys have been recalled, toy manufacturers don’t seem to have figured out how to make toys that will keep the magnets safely enclosed. Not worth the risk.

2. Shun metal jewelry for kids. Time and again, children have been poisoned when they chew or swallow jewelry containing excessive amounts of toxic lead.

A California investigation last fall found that 18 percent of children’s jewelry sold at big retailers violated the state’s strict lead standard. The new federal consumer protection law requires kids’ jewelry to be lead free in six months. In the meantime, plastic is a safer bet.

3. Be suspicious of brightly painted wooden and plastic toys. Multiple recalls over the past year have shown that the old system failed to protect kids from toys with toxic lead paint.

If you are a parent, you’re probably familiar with a few of the following statements; “He hit me,” “She looked at me,” “He ate the last Cheeto — he’s such a pig,” “She used my eraser,” “He thought about poking me,” “He cheated,” “He got to sit in the front last time,” “He’s such a loser!”

And as a parent, you are expected to solve the problem fairly by determining who started the argument, which by now has evolved into something completely unrelated to the original spat.

With both children accusing each other of heinous acts while simultaneously denying each other’s allegations, getting to the root of the problem becomes more difficult than solving global warming.

Even if you successfully end one argument, it’s usually not long before another one starts because, in kid world, there are just so many things to fight about.

It could be the basketball that no one wanted six months ago that is now deflated in a corner of the garage covered in spider webs.

If one child wants it, another will fight for it. A piece of lint from the carpet can become a sought-after treasure, with one child screaming he found it first, so finders keepers.

Independence in children is essential to develop a fine personality.

Giving them a responsibility and wings of independence is one of the greatest gifts you can give to your children.

However, when your children are not ready for that independence and the responsibility, you should not force them; instead let them develop it naturally at their own pace.

Give independence for the goal of education to your children. This helps them to reach their destiny because giving freedom brings out their real nature, talent, potentiality, and yearnings.

Independence for the children means ability to persevere for themselves without causing burden to others.

It is the capability of taking care of themselves in various shades of life such as physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual.

By giving independence to your children, they can know their ability, which allows them to follow their destiny.

How to cultivate independence in a child?

The first step to bring up the independence in a child is facilitating physical independence. You need to help your child towards physical harmonization, so that your children can take care of themselves. This encourages your child to be self reliant.

While parental involvement is key to a child’s success in school, at what point does a participating parent become a smother mother — or father?

Dr. Ken Haller, associate professor of pediatrics at Saint Louis University School of Medicine, said that being an advocate for a child is a noble thing, but at a certain point, parents need to step back and let their children become advocates for themselves.

“That’s the only way kids will be able to learn the skills they’ll need to take care of themselves when they become adults,” Haller said.

Everyone knows — or is — a parent who is overly involved in his or her children’s lives.

Popular culture has labeled them “helicopter parents,” for their tendency to hover closely overhead. While the term is new, Haller said the phenomenon is not.

“There have always been parents who would fit the definition of helicopter parents. They used to be called ‘overprotective parents,’ but the idea of parents who hover over their children to shield them from possible distress is as old as parenting,” he said.

Societal pressures — from pregnancy to college graduation — to raise the perfect child contribute to the problem, Haller said.

The whole day goes better only when the morning activities go softly.

For example, if your morning start is not good, your every task in the morning gets delayed and you reach late to your office and the remaining day goes rushing.

You will be even tensed when you have to see your child’s requirements also.

In order to avoid this morning madness, the best way is to develop your work routine.

If you develop such work routines, your children and rest of the family will also come to know what they can contribute and your family will work as a team. By doing so, the family work will be less stressful to you.

Tips to develop your work routine!

Prepare maximum at the night to make your morning move smoothly, such as preparing your clothes, underwear, hair accessories, shoes, socks, etc one hour before going to your bed.

Also, make your children prepare their clothes and their book bag ready for the next morning. This way they will get habituated with these routines, which will help you to decrease the stress in the mornings. [Parenting Stress]

Rigid, controlling parenting may be linked to increased sexual activity in older teens, U.S. researchers suggest.

However, lead author Rebekah Levine Coley of Boston College said the findings were only “suggestive … not definitive” and did not reveal which parenting techniques work the best.

Coley noted that more than two out of every three U.S. teens has sexual intercourse before age 19.

However, she didn’t provide specific statistics for teens with parents who are more “democratic.”

Coley and her colleagues examined the results of an annual survey of 4,980 American teens born between 1980 and 1984, and used statistical techniques to try to pinpoint the effects of parenting styles.

The findings, reported in the August issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that children seemed to be less sexually active if their parents did not engage in negative and psychologically controlling behaviors.

Things such as family dinners, fun activities or religious activities together seemed to make sexual activity less likely, the findings indicated.

“Warm, more democratic relationships — in which parents do not use negative and psychologically controlling behaviors — could help parents to communicate values, increase adolescents’ identification with their parents, help youth to develop healthy decision-making skills and also keep youth away from negative peer influences,” Coley said in a statement.

Even among low-income families, mothers with greater social and economic resources were more supportive in parenting their children than those with fewer resources, which in turn influenced the children’s cognitive performance.

That’s the main finding of a new study that considers how economic factors and parenting quality jointly influence children’s development.

The researchers examined 2,089 low-income mothers and their children, who took part in the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Study, visiting homes when the children were 14, 24, and 36 months old.

During the visits, researchers measured the quality of parenting (by observing interactions between mothers and their children, and by observing the home environment) and families’ economic resources (specifically, per capita income) to determine how these factors influence children’s cognitive development.

They also looked at the influence of factors such as mothers’ education, children’s birth weight, how often mothers read on their own, and where children’s fathers lived, and sought to learn whether children influence the way their parents interact with them.

Families’ economic resources and the quality of parenting each played a unique role in contributing to children’s cognitive development, the study found.

Whether it is for two hours or an entire day, millions of tweens (children ages 11 to 13) will be left home alone this summer, despite their parents’ concerns that they may not have the knowledge and skills they need to stay safe at home.

Many parents worry that their at-home tweens do not know how to safely use kitchen appliances, where to go to stay safe during a severe storm, or that they should not give out personal information online or over the phone.

Yet, one in five parents polled say that they have left tweens home alone for an entire day.

“There is no magic age at which a child can be left home alone. It typically depends on a parent’s judgment about how mature that child is, and how ready they are to take on the responsibility of being home alone,” says Matthew M. Davis, M.D., M.A.P.P., director of the National Poll on Children’s Health.

“Regardless, when parents decide to leave their children home alone, there are several common at-home safety concerns they need to consider and address with kids ahead of time.”

For more information, visit: Medical News Today

Parenting is a tough job and raising children is challenging.

There is no such University where you can get a degree for this job.

No one tells you how tough it is to become a parent [Coping with stress of parenting child].

You should learn through trial and error methods to perform this job.

Here are ten things why no one tells you about parenting.

10 things that no one tells you until you become a parent

1. No job description for the job of parenting: Is there any job which has no job description, no training program, no performance review and no orientation program.Every job will have all these factors except the parenting job. Parenting job has no description and you will not have any idea how difficult this job can be until you enter or involve into this job. Parenting job will not have any instruction manual for all the things you face.

Having children is the beautiful thing in this world and it is a god’s gift.

It can be a challenging thing for aging parents to up bring their children with good manners and discipline. Along with parenting you can have joy and happiness.

Many parents are planning to have the children in their later life. The reason for this is their career.

They settle financially with own house and property. At this moment, they plan for children.

Being aging parent may not affect some parenting aspects. But, you can feel isolated from the young parents. This can happen at the school event and some one can ask you rudely,” Are you a grand parent or a parent?”

As an older parent it will not be easy for you to squat and bend every time. You can get tired very easily while parenting your children. You should have health consciousness and exercise should become a routine part of your life.

You cannot play soccer with your child at this age. You need more energy to play with your child, so it will be better for you to do regular exercise to be healthy.