Parenting Guru

In parenting troubled teens, parents must take special action to make sure that their teen’s self confidence and esteem are growing positively. Parents might be asking, “How can a parent instill confidence and good self-esteem in their teen?” There are many areas where this should be applied, and all too often because of a teen’s defiance, these areas are usually placed last on the parenting list of responsibilities. Here are three tips parents can begin doing it right now.

When I say that parents must encourage their teen, we obviously know what that means. There are many areas in your teen’s life where they feel inadequate or insecure. Maybe you are aware of them, and maybe not. But, when you see your teen’s self confidence is slipping, or when your teen seems depressed or down, simply encouraging them with words of life will lift their spirit even if it is not showing externally.

Maybe your teen feels insecure about their weight, is unhappy with their appearance, feels low because they lack intellectual skills that their friends have, or feels left out a lot because their friends are leaving them out of fun things.

With all of the above, your words MATTER. If your teen is insecure about their weight and they are not overweight, they need to know, especially from their parent. If your teen is overweight, encourage them to do something about it. Exercise or diet with them in an effort to support and encourage them in their efforts. If they feel left out, invite them. Pursue them and let them know they are special and that you want to hang out with them.

Is your teen doing some new thing with their life? Effectively parenting troubled teens means that even though your son or daughter is very defiant or aggressive towards you, you are making every effort to continue to engage them. Do they have a new hair style? Are they behaving better? Are they making wiser choices with their lives? While parenting troubled teens, parents have to put aside their differences with their kid and reach out to them. This will build a relationship between a parent and a troubled teen.

I know it is difficult, and I know you are sitting there right now saying, “If only you knew my kid, you would not say that!” I WAS your kid. And, my parents checked out often, but not completely. I’m so grateful that my parents never completely checked out. You have to fight this urge and continue encouraging, initiating, and pursuing a relationship with your teen even if those times don’t end well. There will be good times, I promise. Maybe not often, maybe not tomorrow, but your teen will wake up later down the road and realize that their parent(s) reached out to them continually.

In closing, be sure to look at some books in our bookstore about encouraging and pursuing your teen. As hard as it is, please encourage, initiate, and pursue your teen. Parenting troubled teens is a huge responsibility.

Pylones are one of the best tools for improving the eye-hand coordination of the young child. Playing with pylones toys works because it encourages the child to try and try again if needed. Once the concept of reaching and grasping improves to the point where success is routine, the child can measure success by the sensory impact of noise when the toy makes sounds when moved. The concept is simple–make the toy bright and appealing to the child so they will reach for the colorful object and have the fun of hearing sound come from the object they are holding.

Sensory Input

During the first few months of life, every child is deluged with sensory input. The conscientious parent will do everything possible to improve the opportunity for constructive growth in senses. In order to promote coordination, the senses of sight, sound and touch are all involved. This can be done very effectively by providing pylones toys for the child to play with. Vision or the sense of sight can be improved by promoting the bright colors so that the child can focus on the toy with primary color impact. The child then touches the object, usually by grasping it and bringing it to the mouth. When pylones are moved, they typically emit a sound which can be musical or just sound.

Bodily movement

Coordination is a matter of combining the senses of sight and touch so that when the child reaches for an object of attention, it is rewarded by touching, and then grasping the object. Pylones toys are so bright and colorful they are almost like a child magnet. The baby will reach for pylones because of their appearance and will be rewarded by the sound of maraca tones or tambourine bells. Reaching and grasping requires the use of both large muscles and the finer structure of the hands and fingers.

Repetition

It is said that practice makes perfect, but that is true as the baby learns coordination. Providing an object of attention such as pylones means the child can practice moving both the large arm and shoulder muscles, as well as the smaller sensitive hands and fingers. It doesn’t take many repetitions of reach, connect, grasp, and success and the child will realize without consciously thinking about it that a certain series of moves will result in success and reward. Pylones give the incentive to keep reaching because they are bright and full of action figures. The designs are whimsical.

Encouragement

Pylones have the capability to encourage baby to try and succeed. The designs feature lots of color in bold designs, yet the detail is beautifully done. The pylones include a cat, a fairy, a bee and a pig among others that are just plain fun for the child and the parent as well. No dark figures or representations of bad guys. These toys are light, bright, encouraging and yet show lots of potential for the baby’s interest. All these factors allow the child to practice coordination tactics and to learn some control of their environment.

If you have children, you have probably heard the question or asked it yourself. “Why is the baby crying?” The answer to that question might be very simple and easy to answer or it could be much more difficult. Having small children already, you surely know about ‘baby troubleshooting’. Is Junior wet or hungry? Maybe he just wants some attention. Sometimes it is hard to tell why the little one is crying. Facial expressions tell Mom and Dad a lot too. Do you see pain on your infant’s face?

Children cry for a variety of reasons which includes hunger, anger, fear of being left alone, childhood anxiety, teething problems besides fever, headache and sickness, as well. We as adults can do something about these issues and maybe tell our near and dear ones, who in turn will arrange medical help, but very frequently, the baby can be given a solution that may be useful to quickly calm the child’s discomfort downwards, in order to stop it from crying.

Babies express emotions in much the same way that adults do, although their displays are somewhat more intense. They don’t know any other way to convey what they feel other than by smiling and laughing or crying. Of course it’s upsetting to us as parents; especially first time parents when our babies cry and we just can’t seem to figure out why. We’ve changed Junior’s diaper, tried to give him something to drink or eat, cuddled and played with him but he’s still fussy. Ok, now what? My personal experience is the process of elimination diaper change, feeding, burping( Big one here- needs to release stomach gas), teething, holding & rocking.

Maybe the little guy isn’t feeling well. A good idea would be to check for an elevated temperature. Babies tend to have a slightly higher body temperature than older children and adults do. If your baby is running a higher temperature than 100 degrees, it might be a good idea to contact your child’s Pediatrician and make arrangements for an examination soon. Before you do that though, here’s some food for thought.

How old is your baby? Is he or could he possibly be starting to teethe? When babies teethe, they generally tend to run a slight temperature occasionally, which also leads to additional discomfort.

If you discover that your baby is teething, there are a few things you can do to effectively minimize his unhappiness. Along with cuddling and verbal soothing, try a soft plastic toy that is filled with distilled water. Place it in the freezer for awhile and then let baby suck on it.

He’ll love the soothing feeling of the cold against his sore irritated gums. Children’s pain medication is also effective but be sure to read and closely follow the outlined directions for your child’s age on the package. Locally applied gel and cream medications, such as Anbisol temporarily and only slightly numb the gums to help relieve some of your baby’s pain and anxiety.

Rocking – A majority of the crying children love to be cared for held physically, also known as Stroking by the world famous child psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Harris, who says in his book “I am OK You are OK” that all babies who are born in human or animal families need to be stroked regularly and pampered, so that the baby develops a feeling of security and safety when its most vulnerable.

Michael O’Reilly

There are so many obstacles to having healthy kids in our society today. Everything from what they eat to what they do with their spare time can contribute to weight gain and unhealthy bodies. We want our children to be healthy, we just need help figuring out what the potholes are that we should be looking for.

Our standard American diet is known in health food circles as the SAD diet. There are quite a few ingredients in processed foods that are supposed to be good for us but, in fact, are not. For example, that whole wheat bread you’ve bought your family most likely has high fructose corn syrup in it. The fruit snacks that look healthy, (they’re fruit, right?) almost certainly have food dyes in them. The peanut butter, a good source of protein and a favorite for lunchboxes because it won’t spoil, will most likely have partially hydrogenated oils in it. All of these ingredients are known to cause health problems and should be carefully avoided.

How do you avoid them, you ask. It may seem difficult and time consuming at first, but the careful consumer will read the labels for these three high-risk ingredients. There are some enlightened manufacturers who are changing their ingredients for the better.

The good news is, as more parents become aware of and avoid these high-risk ingredients, more healthy alternatives will become available. There are already companies who make fruit snacks using minute amounts of vegetable juice to add color instead of artificially manufactured food coloring. (Which is often made from petroleum.)

There is peanut butter available without partially-hydrogenated oil, you’ll just have to hunt for it a bit. The bread is harder, even fresh made deli whole wheat bread often has high-fructose corn syrup in it. Often, health food stores are the only place to get a truly healthy loaf of bread.

Our children’s hobbies also put them at risk. Watching television and playing video games, even for an hour each evening robs them of the opportunity to interact socially with others. It also keeps them sitting still instead of running, jumping and playing in the fresh air, which is, by the way, healthier than indoor air. Instead of riding their bikes up to the park to play a game of basketball with their friends, they are pushing buttons while a computer animated basketball goes through a hoop.

It is so much better for them to develop hand eye coordination by actually playing real basketball with a real hoop. Even if you don’t have one of those portable basketball hoops in your driveway, there is probably one at a local school or playground.

Fine motor skills can be developed by having them help you snap the fresh green beans you picked up for dinner. No beans? Have them wash the silverware for you after dinner tonight. Anything you can think of that they will use their fingers to do will help them develop these fine motor skills. They do not need a video game to teach them this or any other skill.

Changing our lives entirely at one time seems quite overwhelming and is, in reality, unnecessary. Once you are aware of the pitfalls to children’s health, you can take steps to work in the right direction.

If your child is used to playing video games or watching television every evening, send them outside to play for 15 minutes first. After a month or so, make it 30 minutes, then 45. At the same time, read labels as you do your grocery shopping. Set a goal to find one new item each trip that is a healthier option that your regular brand. These small adjustments will go a long way to investing in your child’s health.

Having a baby shower party can make a wonderful experience for everyone involved. This party has several details to make it complete and successful. When all these details are accomplished, you will be definitely proud to be the hostess of a fantastic welcome party for the newborn child.

One of the first things you should take into consideration is the timing. It will be an organized celebration if you start the planning ahead of time. If it is not a surprise, you can check with the mom-to-be and make schedule the date well in advance of the party. You may also ask the guest of honor’s opinion or ideas about the planning a baby shower party.

Once you have set the date, you can then start thinking about the party theme. This is another detail of the event where the mom-to-be can share her ideas. There are several baby themes to choose from. Maybe she wanted the nursery to be decorated with a teddy bear theme, or perhaps a baby-gender theme.

After the theme has been decided, next is you can start planning for the invitations. You can come up with shower invitations using either of these two ways: purchase invitations at your nearest party shops, or make your own homemade invitations. If you really want to stick with the theme, you need to have invitations that reflects the atmosphere of the said event. Apart from the party invitations, you could buy the decorations, plates, napkins and party favors at the same time. This will serve two purpose; you will enjoy a complete coordinated theme and you will have quite a few of the preparations taken care of well before the day of the shower.

Next to follow are the foods that will be served at the shower party. Will you keep it relatively simple or are you planning for a full course meal? The choice can be very personal, it still up to you and you may want to take into consideration what you think the guest of honor would enjoy most. You may serve cookies or muffins and a fruit cup, or you might rather serve five course meal. Or maybe you will settle on something in-between the two.

Make sure you will have a good venue for all the guests you have invited. Consider having enough chairs or you may prepare some extras, which is a good idea as well. The choice of a good venue is up to you, you can either rent a party room or banquet room at a restaurant. And if cooking is not your field, you could always hire a caterer or have the guests bring part of the food.

Lastly, think of something fun and interesting for everyone to enjoy. Plan for the baby shower games which everybody can participate, as well as prepare prizes for the winners. Also, consider shower gifts not only for the newborn child but for the new parents also. Consider also baby shower favors for the guests such as cute baby items like bibs, baby toys, pacifiers and the likes. You can make them personalized or include a tag on each favor.