Simple body-care tasks such as brushing teeth, combing hair, eating healthy food and bathing are important skills for children to learn. Many are resistant to caring for their own bodies, however, because it takes away from playtime and other fun activities. To encourage your child to take care of her body, it’s important to make body care fun and easy, in addition to explaining its importance, according to pediatrician Dr. William Sears.

Basic body care doesn’t have to be a boring, monotonous task that takes children away from fun activities. Parents should make body care fun and interesting. Provide your child with a brightly colored toothbrush and try putting food coloring in water to encourage her to drink it. Children often master a task most quickly when they’re rewarded for trying, the authors of the book “Child Psychology” write. Try instituting a star chart system. For every day that your child completes basic tasks such as brushing her teeth, drinking water and choosing healthy snacks, give her a gold star to place on her chart. When the chart is full, reward her with a special toy or outing.

Toddlers should begin learning about the importance of washing their hands and brushing their teeth as soon as they can talk. Children at this age love doing things for themselves, so encourage your child to brush his own teeth and wash his own hands with supervision. Preschoolers can help you pick snacks and foods. Give them choices of two or three healthy items. School-aged children can begin choosing their own foods. Reward them for healthy choices. Encourage children to move, run and play and help them understand the important role exercise plays in health. (more…)

Although you do not have suffered from a jealous sibling or have acted like a jealous vindictive spoiled kid against your sister or brother when you were young and immature, you have probably heard that jealousy between siblings can be a very powerful emotion leading children and parents to deal with all sorts of unexpected “thrills.” Neglected older children or “babies” that cannot get over the fact that they are not alone in world compete against each other in order to gain their parents’ attention. This annoying situation can become an endless source of competition and rivalry between siblings. Thus, the following five tips were collected to assist parents in managing jealousy and bringing harmony back into their homes.

• Treat children as unique individuals - siblings do not to be treated exactly the same. When it comes to family, democratic guidance is usually advisable, but it should not be considered a “golden rule.” Giving exactly the same amount of love and attention is not always feasible and in many cases it is not even wise. This is supported by the fact that children become suspicious instead of being satisfied with what parents are able to offer. Treating kids as individuals instead of equals can reduce them from counting every single act and making comparisons.
• Avoid comparisons at all costs - never compare the acts of one child with that of the other! Instead of telling them what they should be doing through using an example like that of their “good” sister or brother, it is preferable if you just state your reasoning and provide sound arguments for your position, as speaking to an adult. Creating guilt to your child will never bring the desired results and you will be facing in the future lifelong resentments and grudges that will follow them forever.
• Cultivate the unique skills of your children - in order to build your child’s self-esteem, foster his or her skills in a different way from that of his/her brother or sister. Children that enjoy the outcomes of their special efforts together or through the exact same way are prone to feel less loved or neglected. Set your children’s successes apart and keep the necessary balance. (more…)

Though it is impossible to draw up a list of list of hard and fast rules and methods for parenting, simply because not all family situations are alike, and not all children respond to parenting methods in the same way. If this is so, does that make any talk of ‘learning’ about parenting useless? Absolutely not! While methods may have differing effects, and every situation calls for a different set of rules, the things that should remain constant are the basic concepts each parent must learn. These concepts will help guide parents in their constant effort to be better parents.

Unconditional Love – Unconditional love is one of the concepts that should permeate every action and every interaction between parent and child. It is also one of the most misunderstood concepts. How a parent expresses this to the child may very well determine how the child views himself, and his/her worth.

Many children grow up with a low sense of self-esteem as a result of many different factors. They may feel that the love they are shown depends on their accomplishments. Or, they may feel unwanted, or unloved.  All parents should, early on, be certain to show their children how important they are, no matter what, so that they can grow-up loving in the same way. This concept is very important in building self-worth.

Responsibility – Children should grow up with a sense of responsibility for their actions, and the things around them. Far too many children grow up to be irresponsible parents, friends, and family, not caring or not knowing how to care, and to accept their own responsibilities.

Children who grow without a sense of responsibility too often find themselves blaming other people for things they should be dealing with themselves. Alternately, lack of responsibility training could cause children to blame themselves for things that they have no control over. This is an opposite, but equally undesirable problem. Responsible children learn to care for and properly manage their time and resources – and ultimately your time and resources as a parent as well! (more…)

Decrease the amount of laundry you do by creating new standards of “dirty”. If you wear a pair of jeans for two hours then put on your shorts, are the jeans dirty? Not in my house. Pajamas put on a clean body at night after a bath and worn once aren’t dirty either. Ditto for a towel that blots a freshly scrubbed body. Teach your kids that dirty mean it has food or obvious dirt marks on it. The exception? Underwear of course!

Minimize sorting by putting a hamper in each bedroom that has 3 slots. One for whites, one for darks, and one for mixed colors. For kids that are very young, try cutting out a large circle from construction paper for each category. Tape these on the wall above the hamper to show where to put each color. Alternately, you could buy inexpensive colored bins that match laundry colors.

Train your kids to bring you their dirty laundry at the beginning of each day or at some other time you choose. Don’t turn socks right side out for laundering. Show your family members how to take off their socks without bunching them into an inside out ball. If they don’t choose to listen to your sock lessons, let them turn their own socks right side out.

You may be able to minimize sorting even more by washing more clothes together. Many times light colors can go into the wash with mixed colors if you use cold water and the items aren’t brand new. Typically only cheap clothing fades anyway so buy your kid’s clothing from the nicer stores. It will last longer and wash well. (more…)

If using a blanket, it is best to place your infant with his or her feet nearly touching one end of the crib, and then tuck the blanket in at the foot and the sides allowing it to cover no farther than your baby’s chest. Using a sleeper instead of a blanket may further reduce any risk of danger. Your child should sleep on his or her back in a crib with a firm, tightly fitting mattress. This is to prevent your child from becoming trapped between the sides of the crib and the mattress. Do not put pillows, comforters, quilts, bumper pads or stuffed toys in the crib with your child. Only use fitted sheets that are made for cribs and fit the mattress properly.

Be sure there are no loose or poorly installed brackets, screws or other hardware on the crib or mattress support. The corner posts should not be taller than 1/16th of an inch high to prevent the infant’s clothing from getting caught and there should not be any cutouts on the headboard or footboard where your child’s head might become trapped. The slats of the crib should be no more than 2 1/4 inches apart so that the baby cannot squeeze through. Never use a crib with missing or damaged slats.

If you plan to use a crib with mesh sides, don’t use anything with mesh larger than 1/4 inch because the buttons from your infant’s clothing could get caught. If the crib or playpen was manufactured using staples, just be sure none of them are missing, loose or sticking out. Check the tops and bottoms on all sides to be certain the mesh is securely attached and make sure there are no rips or holes in the rail cover along the top especially. Always check for damaged mesh and do not use the crib or playpen if there are holes or loose threads. (more…)

Life is all about balance and making hard choices, and there are often no harder choices to be made than those involving our finances. While it can become tempting to live above our means in the hopes that our financial situation will one day improve to the point where we can make up the debt we’ve incurred over the past years, this is neither an intelligent nor moral way to live.

Likewise though, cutting back too much in an attempt to save away for something such as our child’s education or our retirement fund may make it difficult to stay motivated. We all to help our children get ahead, and feel secure in our future retirement, but is it worth sacrificing the present for and making life more difficult now, for a future that is uncertain at any rate? These are the difficult choices that must be considered when planning out your finances current and future.

One of the common problems with purchases or expenses is that their future costs aren’t taken into consideration. You may budget for the price of a new car, but are you also budgeting for the increased insurance prices that will come with it, the other little upgrades that you may want to have done to it, the increased fuel cost that may be associated with the car, etc.? These scenarios are where people often get blindsided with costs they weren’t expecting and get in over their head. Many purchases are not just simple one-off payments or monthly charges, many will require additional expenses or payments you need to take into consideration.

Another risk you run by having your income constantly tapped to the limit is that when an emergency comes up you’re often forced to turn to the credit cards or some other line of credit to get through it, and from then on run the risk of that slippery credit slope.

It’s important to separate necessary from unnecessary expenses. We live in a true golden age of luxuries, and this is great and all, but too often these things come to be viewed as necessities when they are anything but. Thing about how people lived as little as 50 years ago and re-evaluate what’s really a necessity and what isn’t. (more…)