While some babies sleep well from the jump, most babies go through at least a few sleep regressions as they learn to become great sleepers. But even after you’ve gone through sleep training, your baby can still regress back to a time when it seemed like you had to walk on eggshells in order to get the baby to sleep and keep the baby asleep.
[Read more…]Raking in the Dough: Helping Your Teenager Become an Entrepreneur
There are two common phrases all teens utter on a seemingly daily basis: “I’m bored!” and “Can I have some money?” And these phrases are repeated even more frequently during the summer months, when students have many long weeks to revel in their freedom. However, there’s a solution that will not only eliminate these two phrases from your teen’s vocabulary, but will also teach valuable lessons in responsibility and money management:
Help your teen start a business
As well all know, starting a business is hard work. It takes dedication and patience to get a business going, and sometimes these are traits teens seem to lack. But in many cases, teens already possess these traits and are just waiting to surprise their parents with them. Here are some examples of businesses your teen can start. [Read more…]
Help Your Child Improve His Spelling Skills
They say that Americans are some of the worst spellers in the world. Perhaps it is because English is not exactly the easiest language when it comes to spelling words. Then again, it might be that not everyone pays attention. Whatever the reason may be, there is no doubt that every responsible parent would want to help his child to do well in school – and part of that is being a decent speller. If your child is struggling with spelling, here are some things that you can do.
Practice makes perfect. It is a cliché, but it works. Children who struggle with spelling need to take some extra time to work on it. Be supportive and help your child – a few minutes everyday will make a world of difference. More than merely writing out words, drill your child in oral spelling, as this will sharpen his skills as well.
Teach the cardinal rule of spelling: “I before e, except after c, or when sounding like an a, as in neighbor and weigh.” You might have heard that the schools in the UK are tearing this rule down, but it has been tried and tested, and your child will really benefit from knowing this rule by heart.
Here’s another rule: “When ing comes to stay, little e runs away.” This helps your child spell words ending in –ing properly. Words like freeze and please becomes freezing and pleasing.
Bottom line: make it fun for your child and show him that you are there to support him.
Get Your Kids Into The Olympic Bandwagon
We’re right smack in the middle of the Winter Olympics. Have your kids gotten into the spirit of it all yet? It saddens me that today, some kids would rather play sports via the PlayStation (or any other gaming console) than actually go outdoors and kick some butt. With the Winter Olympics going on, though, it might be a great time to show your kids just how fun actually playing sports is!
How do you do this? Simple: tune in to the broadcasts of the Olympics as much as you can. No matter how you look at it, the games are glamorous enough to encourage your kid to try sports himself/herself.
You don’t stop there, though. More than simply watching the Olympics on TV (and the Net, perhaps), your next step should be to “drag” your kid out and have some real fun.
If you’ve got a little girl, you might want to take her out to the skating rink. There’s no better time than now! Just make sure you glam things up a bit by dressing her up nicely in an Olympic-style tutu. Some glitters and made up hair won’t hurt, too.
For little boys (or girls, even), try cycling. If the weather doesn’t permit, find an inside bike track. Gear your kid up with enough padding and a helmet. Equip yourself with a stopwatch and a red flag (a hanky will do) and go get some training done.
There are many other activities that you can choose from depending on your child’s preferences. The bottom line is that you wrack your brain to up the activity a couple of notches. You never know, you might have an Olympian in the making!
Why Do Kids Get Bullied?
I have always believed that getting bullied is NOT the fault of the child who is on the receiving end of the aggressive behavior. It is the same reasoning behind believing that there is no excuse for men raping or beating women.
According to a recent study, however, there are certain factors that contribute to a child being prone to being bullied by his peers. The study was led by Clark McKown from the Rush Neurobehavioral Center in Chicago. His team identified at least three problem areas in nonverbal communication. They are:
• Reading nonverbal cues
• Understanding their social meaning
• Coming up with options for resolving a social conflict.
While I maintain my belief that these problems do not justify bullying in any way, the identification of these problems can help parents and educators in dealing with victims of bullying. If these problem areas contribute to being bullied, then they can be addressed and hopefully, the bullied child can find a way out of his situation.
Experts point out that the bottom line is to teach children social skills. He says that it is worse for those who are rejected by their peers because they already have problems in this area to begin with. Rejection and isolation just make it worse as they do not have opportunities to practice their social skills.
This highlights an important thing for parents: make sure that you children get enough exposure to their peers as early as possible to help them gain the necessary social skills.