Stop worrying unnecessarily about your kid

A kid brings immense amounts of happiness to a family. But the excitement and fun is often marred by all the unnecessary worries. Even before the baby is born, parents especially mothers worry about a lot of things including whether the baby will be completely healthy or not. The turning points in the toddler’s first years  — the first smile, the first step and  the first word, indicate how well the child is developing.   

Common worries parents are sunk into         

                                

The moment the doctor declares that the newborn is a healthy one, the parents and their relatives  heave a sigh of relief. But various other worries soon gather to emerge in their mind. With time, parents distress themselves if the baby denies to be fed frequently. Next they worry about delayed emergence of the baby’s tooth. A very common fear arises amongst parents when their baby’s first words come late. They begin comparing their own child with other children whose milestones have followed a “normal” trajectory. In such a case parents often worry if their child is going to  have speech impairment. Parents have lot more other worries too as the child grows up.

What you can do instead?

When your toddler’s first word comes late, it doesn’t necessarily spell trouble.  Latest  research suggests that parents need not worry so much about delays in speech; So enjoy being with your child spending quality time. Feel the happiness to have a cute little one in the family. It is understandable that a baby is unable to speak out his or her problem and therefore parents become nervous. But if there is anything wrong, your kid will surely show some signs like crying out loud and that too continuously or quite frequently. If such a situation arrives visit a doctor immediately. It is better than sitting at home worrying.   

Let your child grow up at his own pace

Every person is unique. The same is applicable for your child too. Your little one might be way different than other kids of his age and there is nothing to be perplexed about. Do not expect your child to learn certain things at the same time as other kids do. He or she may be a slow learner and hence may take some more time. Respect the child’s individual pace and be patient.  The best way to ensure that children hit normal milestones is to engage with them and stimulate them by introducing new things in their environment, playing, talking, reading out and interacting with them at their level.

Respect changes!

With time your kid will be facing a lot of changes. Moreover, as a parent, accept these changes and help them accept the changes in their life. Children face most amounts of changes during their adolescent period. Though stepping into teens  can be a period of conflict between parent and child, this is also a time to help kids grow into the distinct individuals. Its period of intense growth, not only physically but emotionally and intellectually. So be there, supporting them through this phase and channelize them to positive paths with  lot of patience and love. The drastic changes in their behavior and attitude during this period may hurt you but all you need to do is to be calm and stop worrying.

How to Train yourself and act quickly when your kid gets head injuries

Head injuries are less harmful than they appear to be. To act smart in a situation when your kid hurts himself you need to know everything related to head injuries.

The incident may be like this- you are just a few steps ahead of your child when suddenly you realize that he has slipped off the stairs and has hurt himself. Since the child hit the hard cemented floor, a bump begins forming on his forehead. It might so happen that blood has started gushing out from just above his eyes. As a consequence, an unsightly gash, bump, black eyes etc. are noticed. If situations like this ever occur, do not delay in visiting a doctor. Though in most of the cases the doctor would say that your child would be absolutely okay in just a few weeks of time, you need to take care of him. Even if the injuries are mild do watch your kid closely and consult a doctor in case your child develops symptoms of any serious head injury.

Parenting behaviors that prevent children from growing into leaders

Parenting should not harm a child’s future. It should be channelized in ways that make the future bright and prosperous, not mollycoddle it into inefficiency and incompetence. The great leaders of the world were also once children, but their parents had provided apt guidance which helped them to greatness. Parental support, appreciation, and guidance in the right direction are very important for children to acquire leadership qualities. Certain qualities need to be developed in children like confidence, oratorical skills, control over subordinates, managerial talent, ability to mingle with people, good communication, and thorough knowledge in various subjects of interest.

Parenting errors faults that can damage potential leadership qualities:

• Over protecting our children :

An over protected child is the deprived one. We want the best for our kids, but ‘over protection’ and ‘over connection’, does the damage. ‘Don’t walk’, ‘Don’t run’, ‘Wear a helmet’, ‘Wear knee pads’, we keep warning our kids because we live in a world full of dangers. We have insulated our kids from taking risks. Here, we are talking about relative risks. Children need a bit of risk as much as vitamins. If a child is not allowed to play outside and never experiences a scraped knee or a small injury, they may develop certain phobias as adults. So, kids need to fall a few times to learn it is normal; Pain is actually a necessary teacher. For example, if there was no pain, one could burn one’s self or step on a nail and not do anything about it.

Ten Ways to Deal with a Teenager Who Talks Back

Being a parent is a beautiful feeling, but there might be situations when your experiences with your teenager can be disappointing. Today, in almost all families, we witness teenagers who talk back to their parents.

It is scientifically proven that arrogance increases if tolerated or encouraged. Some parents don't take their teenagers' arrogance seriously, some do not want to take away their freedom, and some simply cannot win with their younger ones.

Your teenagers ought to know how their behavior can affect them and their surroundings, and what the society expects from them, especially when they become adults. So here are ten ways to deal with a teenager who talks back:

• Give respect when you want respect. 

Yes, you love your child; but everyone, even a kid, wants to be respected. Do not use abusive language or offensive names (name-calling) when talking to your teen. It’s always good to talk about or stick to the behavioral traits if you wish to bring a change in your teenager.

• The rules you set for the house as a parent should be very clearly communicated to the teenager. 

Teenagers should be clearly told what kind of behavior you and others expect from them. The rules must sound logical and clear-cut. Also, after some argument or fight, when you both are in a composed state of mind, make sure you sit with your child and talk about the rules that have been set, and what will happen if the same are broken.

• Simply change your approach or your way of interaction. 

If your relation with your child has been strained due to the teenager’s rudeness and your irritated reactions plus punishments, then you obviously need a positive change. Talk to your child about this harshness in your relation and tell him/her that you wish to change it. Allow the teenager to plan something (anything) via which you both can have a quality time together. And make a deal that both of you will be nice to each other to successfully implement the plan /activity. If this does not happen, don't give up, try again.

• No negotiation when it comes to the well-being of your child. 

Parents should never surrender, lose confidence, or get into any negotiation with their teenager. If you negotiate when taking decisions, and are not steady enough with your conclusions, your child gets an indirect message that they can make you do what they want. As a result, they become more argumentative in similar situations next time. Also, there is no need to give extra advice or speech, as your child will hardly care to listen in such situations, and this behavior might upset you as well.

• Influence your child in a positive way. 

Your tone, behavior, and attitude towards others influence your child greatly. Many times they simply copy you. Also, it’s good if you can talk to your child about your own flaws and accept that you need to change them.

• Healthy conversations are always better than arguments. 

When your kids get older, the rules of the house also need modification. Your children should have a say in this, but they should be taught to do the same with politeness. It's very important for you to be a good listener here, yet decide finally what's right for your child.

• If teenagers want to think that their experience is a unique one, let it be that way. 

Most teenagers feel their parents don't understand them, and when you say, "I understand", it reaches your child as a false claim. Just tell your child that you genuinely want to understand; and that they need to tell you the problem or experience. If talking can't help, ask your teen to write you a letter. Most importantly teach them that interaction can happen without rudeness.

• Let your child realize the mistakes. 

If your child has done something wrong, try not to cover it up. This way, teenagers become responsible for their own wrong actions and face the consequences. Such experiences help them in the long run.

• Tell the teenager to be specific. 

Your child should know that he/she must respect you and others. Teens should be taught that name-calling or labeling someone as something will never be encouraged. It should be communicated that their rudeness will not help; instead they should specifically refer to the problem that's bothering them and what solution they want.

• Remember, you are the adult. 

If your teenager talks back and is disobedient, you must not lose your self-control. Forcing or threatening a teenager in such situations can make the matter worse. Just make your child aware of how badly they are behaving and they might be punished for the same. Tell the teenager that you will talk about it later and leave the conversation.

If you still feel that the situation is deteriorating day by day, don’t delay, and seek professional help.

Do you want your kid to be smarter?

According to researches, kids are the best learners. They can acquire things more easily through play. Instead of buying them expensive toys, buying them intelligent ones is a fair play. There are certain indoor as well as outdoor games that help in encouraging our children to play and have fun, thereby developing healthy connections and choices in life.

Outdoor Activities:

Game: Follow the Leader, for your toddler

How to play the game 

The children can line up and one child is designated as a leader whom the rest of the kids are to follow around. To begin with, an adult can lead so kids get the idea. The Leader begins moving around with actions that the rest of the players must mimic. Anything — including sit down or stand up, dance, jump — what the leader does, the others must follow. Those players who disobey, or lag behind the leader's motions are out of the game. The last person standing becomes the new Leader.

Objective:

The children learn to observe closely, and use the power of mimicry.

Make it more fun: 

Set the game to music. The leader can demonstrate dance moves that the followers must imitate.

Sand and Water Sensory Play:

This is an outdoor game and can keep your child engaged in their summer holidays. A bucket of water, a basin of sand and a few cups and scoops can keep your kid busy for hours. The child learns - to create castles, dumping, digging, scooping, mixing and pouring. While dong this activity, the child improves his or her fine motor skills and cognitive skills. This helps in development of the quality of persistence and patience.  Dear parents, we are sure you would love to sit back and watch the play unfold as their creativity and imagination is sparked during sand play.

Hide and Seek:

This is a classic game probably played by all kids, their parents and grandparents. It’s a fun way to develop sense of mapping, direction, spatial skills and navigation. Researchers have observed that, this game, when played in the evening, helps to remove the phobia of darkness that some kids suffer from. Playing hide-and-seek gives a child an opportunity to develop their social skills as they play with others, learn team work, to deal with conflicts between participants, take turns, physical development like- exercise that helps them build stamina and enhance muscle development. The task of finding a perfect hiding place helps a child in improving their balance, agility, problem solving and coordination skills.

Indoor Games:

Blocks: are the most important toys for children that helps develop critical skills, thinking power, concentration level and patience. This also indirectly helps in language development and their reasoning power. Children discuss what they are building hence their language and vocabulary skills become better. There’s lot of technology around the child so, playing with blocks may become boring. But through block play a child gains a lot. Once the child develops interest in this, it will help them to be away from video games and television series. Some of the math skill acquired while block play is comparing, learning shapes, and counting. Using block play to learn certain science concepts like creating a house helps young designers manipulate space and come up with queries, for example:  will this fit here?  Will this fall down?  Will this make the shape I want?

Puzzles:

Different puzzles of their favourite characters helps in developing their sense of appropriateness. Gives sharpness to their intelligence and keeps them busy for hours.

Dress-Up Game:

This game helps in developing imagination power, creative thinking and even impulse control. Through this game, the child develops her own taste. The child learns to oraganise complex thoughts. For example when the child dresses up as a doctor, he thinks about what it is like being a doctor therefore understanding and being aware of other peoples’ thoughts and feelings. This begins the feeling of empathy in a child.

Cooking Game: is a girls’ all- time favourite game! Every girl has a set of plastic kitchen in her room which includes the doll’s house. Pretending to cook helps in pre-literacy skills. Children learn from what happens around them, from what they see, hear, smell, taste and touch.   To absorb those experiences and make sense of the world, they need to be engaged in imaginary play. It also sets a sense of creativity in them. As they are pretending to be cooking, they keep on searching for things that can replace a real thing. Like, they take a sponge for sandwich or make it a piece of cake, take leaves as salad ingredients, take different coloured flowers as veggies etc. A sense of abstract thinking develops that helps in the long run.

Best Ways To Spend Quality Time With Your Kids

Who on earth does not want to be called the ‘best parent in the world’? But achieving this special tag is sometimes harder than you can ever imagine. Though some people hold inborn qualities of becoming a perfect parent, some need to toil really hard for becoming so. But the moment you are considered the greatest father or mother by your kid it seems to be the best happiness or reward you can ever receive. Having a perfect balance of all qualities of a good parent can only help you cross the hurdle of this reward.

Spending quality time is extremely crucial

When you spend real good time with your children you will surely progress towards becoming their closest friend. And that will largely help you be their best ‘friend, philosopher and guide’. Infants need extra care whereas teens require special mental support from their parents mainly during their adolescent period. Otherwise they may end up becoming stubborn, unruly or indifferent. This is why you need to spend a particular time of each day with your little ones even if you are too busy a person with your professional work.

Five Basic Lessons Parents Want Their Children To Learn

Every parent wants his or her children to learn the best life lessons and therefore they must act patiently teaching them every single important thing. For this some parents prefer sending their kids to school than homeschooling them. Schools let kids learn a lot of things like making proper and constructive conversations and many more.

1. Be the first one to interact

People often spend time thinking what the other people are thinking about them or being too judgmental about them. This makes them feel conscious and refrain them from being friendly to others. Kids should be taught to avoid guessing what people are actually thinking staring at them. In most of the cases those people are thinking just the same thing. So teach your kids to be friendly and take the first move interacting with others. They must know that interaction works amazingly in easing out inhibitions and other negative feelings. Interaction is the key to know people better and learn lessons of life.

How to Teach Your Little One About Good and Bad Touch

Reading about child abuse and molestation in newspapers, magazines or on INTERNET sites naturally gives you a feeling of disgust. People, who have been a victim of physical molestation, know how negatively such incidents can affect innocent children. Therefore, every responsible parent would want to do everything to keep their children safe and informed about what’s good and what’s bad.

The following tips might help you to teach your children about good touch and bad touch:

Flustered because your toddler refuses to do his home work on his own? Here’s how you can help

Every parent nurtures the dream of giving a sound education to their kids, and for this they want their children to perform very well in academics in school. However helping them with their homework do not necessarily mean that you will finish the assignment for them. Instead charter a plan as how to help them do their school home works on their own, so that slowly but surely they are capable of dealing with the lessons by themselves.

Here are a few tips which will surely help you manage the homework of your toddler, without completing the task for him.

Undisturbed sleep for your toddler at night? Looks tough, but actually doable!

Is your toddler like an owl at night? Do not fret! This is a very common problem and  it is indeed harrowing for the already tired and overworked parents, especially the mom, who fervently prays for a disturbance free, good night’s sleep for her infant. In most cases, the infant goes to sleep quite early without any fuss, but within an hour he is wide awake, either crying loudly or wanting to come out of bed to play. This tussle continues for quite some time until he settles down for an undisturbed sleep.

Why does an infant get intermittent sleep?

How to teach your Children to respect their Grandparents!

As families are becoming nuclear, the time spent by grandparents and grand children together is shrinking in an alarming rate. But as a parent, you need to take at least some initiatives to teach your kids the irreplaceable functions of grandparents in life. The following 4 points will show you how to lead children to respect their grandparents.

• Spend time with your own parents

Time is the best and most precious gift you can give to anyone, even to your own parents. If you children don’t witness the bonding time between your own parents and you; don’t expect them to repeat it in future. Try to spend some family time with your own parents during weekends and extended vacations. Show your children that how much it’s important to interact and have fun with elders in family. If your children have special functions in school, then invite the grandparents too to attend them, if it’s logistically possible.

Top 4 ways to show your love to your child!

In this time of PDA and professing love-for-each-other-in-Facebook, it’s highly important that you should develop a special communication code with your child. Parenthood is a blessing to enjoy that most of the parents tend to forget during the process. Even if you have multiple kids as well as tight work schedule, the 4 ways below can give you a good head start over – how to love your child every day.

Give her the most important gift- your time!

Just like you used to go with your partner on special dates repeat that too with your child; though it would be more suitable to do with kids aged 3 years and upward. Most of the family restaurants have happy hours for children when they charge peanuts for a glass of milkshake or a yummy kiddie lunchbox. Choose an appropriate time and have a date with your child during weekends. Have a chat with her at your heart's content over some delicious food. She will value it more over expensive toys, which is for sure.