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There”s nothing more adorable than the sight of a toddler happily immersed in an afternoon of play. Wee hands stack blocks and peals of excited laughter escape from his tiny body as playtime ensues. But when two toddlers come face to face during playtime, they’re ready for a showdown, and their battle cry in a playground full of toys rings: It’s mine!
When the time came for my daughter to string sentences together, she never stopped. She talked and talked, and when she ran out of stuff to say, well, she just made noises. These days, my daughter always has a thought to share or observations to vocalize. From the time she’s up to the time she’s fast asleep, there are few quiet moments in between without thoughts, ideas, out-loud play, questions, or commentary. Having a talkative kid has its pros and cons, as anyone with a chatterbox will know.
Musical beds is a common nocturnal pastime in our household. The night starts out right with both children asleep in their own beds, but by the morning, usually at least one of them is in my bed and I am usually either on the lounge or in one of their beds.
Is there any way to get those darned children to stay asleep… in their own rooms… in their own beds.. for the entire night?
“Teaching the next generation coding is something that should be elevated to a strategical national importance,” said Wang Jiulin, the Xi’an-based creator of Kidscode.cn, a website that shares free information and courses. “Even today, the majority of programmers in China can only perform very basic-level tasks and there’s huge demand for top notch coders.”
’m not sorry that, because I’m a working mom, you get more quality time with your perfectly capable father. I’m not sorry that you’ve bonded with your other caregivers, because the more people who love you—and the more people you love back—the better.
The clock is color-coded so that kids can easily follow along and know what task they should be working on. Having structure in the evenings helps develop an easier bedtime routine, which is essential for kids. Their brains are working overtime, so make things as easy as possible for them!
Although math skills are considered notoriously hard to change, Johns Hopkins University researchers improved preschoolers’ arithmetic performance simply by exercising their intuitive number sense with a quick computer game.
Stay-at-home moms hear it all the time:
You're so lucky to be able to stay home with your baby!
Well, I wish I could afford to do that...
So you watch TV and play games all day?
So like... you don't work?
Enough is enough. It's high time we all paid attention to the real work stay-at-home moms (and dads!) put in day in and day out. One man, who is engaged to a hard-working stay-at-home mom, posted a picture to Facebook that helps us see this in action. When men appreciate the work of women, it's a wonderful thing for us all. Take a look at this:
Since my wife is a teacher, I have spent countless hours listening to teachers tell their stories. This has caused me to recognize some things I would like to share with my fellow parents.
A young and fascinating field of research called behavioral economics helps us explain why our kids act entitled sometimes.
Approximately at the age of two, children learn bowel control first before bladder control or the reverse way. The child’s bowel or bladder control is mostly done in the morning than in the evening. Experts suggested that potty training should only be initiated when your child is already showing certain signs of readiness which is visible in the ages of two to three years old. There are signs when they already exhibiting attitudes of controlling their bowel or bladder.
This little machine is loaded with lessons about engineering and mobility. The gearbox teaches kids how gear ratios affect speed. And when it walks, the robot's feet can slip unless you add a dab of glue to them. That's a great introduction to problem solving: increasing friction to create traction and enable faster movement.
Raise your hand if you end up doing the majority of your kid’s language arts homework? Or is it just me who spent an entire weekend making a booklet on penguins and writing an essay on Mandela? It isn’t so much that I want to control everything, but I have a fear that if my son hasn’t properly researched a speech or presentation he has to make, he’ll get up in front of his class and make a huge fool of himself. My husband frequently reminds me, “It isn’t your homework, it’s his.” He refuses to get involved, but I just can’t help myself.....
Storm-Manea Ellyatt is calling bull on the facade of parenthood displayed on social media. Instead of posting a highlight reel of her life, she’s getting real about the daily struggles she faces as a mother — and she invites everyone to join her.
“All those cute bonds ads, miniature Nike shoes, adorable baby shower gifts, baby spam on Instagram, squad dates with your mum posse and those god damn laceylaners lied to me,” she wrote on Thursday, listing her failed expectations about parenting based on how it’s conveyed by ads, TV and online.
“Not once did I see an ad with a mum locked in her cupboard crying in her leaked stained pjs from 3 days ago, covered in sweat and vomit, praying to every god imaginable for the strength and patience to go back to the s**tshow that is now their life,” she wrote. “The once calm, poised, patient goddess, who could sling cocktials, swear with sailors and dance uninhibited until tomorrow afternoon, can bearly hold a conversation, hold her eyes open or the tears back from this new found ‘bliss.’”
The type of discipline you use can have a dramatic effect on your child’s development. Your discipline strategies can have a big impact on the type of relationship you have with your child. The various approaches to discipline can even influence a child’s mood and temperament into adulthood.
Researchers have discovered four types of parenting styles. These different styles are dependent on what the parent feels the child needs from them.
As a result, each parenting style uses a different approach to discipline.
We all cringe at the parent on the sidelines of the sports field screaming at their child, so invested in their success that you’d think it was their own.
We shake our heads at the stage mums on TV pushing crying children to perform and trying to convince us that it’s all for their child, not them.
We are horrified at the parents who reject their children because of their sexuality.
I’m not going to sugar coat this for you. I struggled horribly with my 2-year-old not listening. As a mom who researches things like how to make kids listen and how to be a positive parent to a strong willed child, the twos about did me in.
We don’t always appreciate it when our children begin to cry, but what they are actually doing is making use of the body’s innate recovery system. When we get hurt, physically or emotionally, instead of storing it all up in our bodies as tension, we can make use of crying, laughter, raging or trembling. This is how the body processes and releases feelings. Most of us don’t do this often, having being told “Don’t cry” since we were small, but our children still have their recovery system intact.
Five years after the nuclear disaster, 20 Japanese schoolchildren are in Singapore for fun therapy, at a unique art camp to help them deal with the trauma of 3/11 and their disrupted lives.
’If you want to raise a creative child, you have to teach them to think independently,’ says Adam Grant, teacher at Wharton School of Business, PA, a father of three, and author of a book of psychology. Bright Side brings you three basic principles from this extraordinary man that should be followed by every parent who wants their children to grow up to be creative and talented.
A new study is sure to make some parents giddy as it reveals a simple solution to treat kids with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). There is no more need for prescribed medication, just a change of lifestyle would be able to solve the child's behavioral and attention problems.
Frustrating, isn’t it? But take heart, because there are simple ways to get your children to listen to you. I’ve worked with thousands of children and teens, so I’ll share with you the 20 best tips I know. - See more at: https://www.familiesforlife.sg/discover-an-article/Pages/20-Simple-Ways-To-Get-Your-Children-To-Listen-To-You.aspx#sthash.yF9zXCZ1.dpuf
Playing out front with some neighborhood kids one sunny Saturday afternoon last month, Apollo asked if he could go around the block on his bike. By himself and he is 4.
Room sharing tips can be so helpful to second-time mothers. When I was pregnant with my second son I worried about how sibling room sharing would go. I looked all over the internet for reassurance that my baby and my preschooler would be fine sharing a room. We live in a very small home and while baby would be staying in our room at first, the two boys would have to bunk together eventually.
Mikaila Ulmer's BeeSweet Lemonade will be carried by 55 stores in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. When Whole Foods saw the promise in her lemonade, the supermarket agreed to sell the products in its regional stores. If Mikaila's lemonade does well, it'll eventually be sold nationwide.
The savvy 6th-grader from Austin, Texas, has developed her signature Me & The Bees lemonade stand into a thriving national business.
Adequate magnesium levels are crucial for brain, cardiac and muscle function!!
According to the EWG’s report, these are the 7 worst sunscreens for kids:
1. Banana Boat Kids Max Protect & Play Sunscreen Lotion, SPF 100
2. Coppertone Water Babies Sunscreen Stick, Wacky Foam and Sunscreen Lotion, SPF 55
3. CVS Baby Sunstick Sunscreen and Spray, SPF 55
4. Equate Kids Sunscreen Stick, SPF 55
5. Neutrogena Wet Skin Kids Sunscreen Spray and Stick products, SPF 70
6. Up & Up Kids Sunscreen Stick, SPF 55
7. Hampton Sun Continuous Mist Sunscreen for Kids, SPF 70
We all know how difficult it is to be consistent with parenting. The area of discipline is even fraught with a lot of hand-wringing, usually out of guilt on our part. We've lost count at how often we've given the kids a pass from an infraction that would have meant automatic suspension of iPad privileges if it happened on a day when we're not distracted (read: bone tired).
Grab your finest construction paper and show your kid the simple joy of folding, aiming, and hucking that origami bomber as far as it’ll fly.
Once upon a time, babies’ first smiles would often be dismissed as “probably just gas.”
Now, scientists know better.
Starting nearly from birth, infants’ ethereal grins provide a window into their social and emotional development, researchers say. And the responses those enchanting and goofy expressions elicit can help program babies’ brains for a lifetime of social interactions.
Obama can’t help but get really into it. Can you blame him?
As the environmental exposures and chemical burden on our bodies has risen, so have rates of diseases, particularly those that impact kids, including asthma, childhood cancers, autism, and ADHD. The questions arise: What are the toxins? Where can we find them? How dangerous are they? Most importantly, how can we reduce, if not remove, them?
Munas Van Boonstra runs four businesses simultaneously, while gracefully juggling life as a single mother to two adorable children. Her businesses include an events planning company, Nasty Inc; an events furniture & props rental company, Event Rental Malaysia; Gingerbread Haus, a line of children’s clothing she’s started with her kids, and her latest venture being Supermumpreneur, a women & mum’s university where she teaches women how to do it all and entrepreneurship.
Children get cuts, scrapes and bruises. Curious and brave, kids are constantly playing and exploring. It’s part of growing up. But playtime that seems harmless can turn into something much more serious within seconds.
Using laser pointers to play pretend rocket ships or make the family pet run back and forth looks like fun. But an eight-year-old boy’s experience with laser pointers is proof of the serious damage they can cause. Johnny Marshall was at his sister’s school fair when he saw a laser pen at one of the vendor booths. After some begging and pleading, his parents gave in and bought him the toy. Johnny was playing with his new toy at home when he shone it into his eyes out of curiosity — something that many children might do. Within a quarter of a second, he was left with a thermal burn and permanent damage to his retina.
Here are tips by Randy Dean, the author of bestselling book at Amazon, for making sure the robots work for you and not the other way around:
According to a new study by Leipzig University, the first-born children get an IQ boost from having to teach their younger siblings. Receiving undivided attention also benefits the IQ. These differences in intelligence is thought to occur from nurture and upbringing, rather than biology.
These fabulous toys will keep your toddler busy for five minutes... a miracle we know!
The story chronicles Potter's struggle 19 years after defeating the insidious Lord Voldemort. The now-adult wizard works for the Ministry of Magic and is struggling to reconcile with his past and raise three children of his own. Rowling is credited with the idea for the play.
Gluten-free products are increasingly popular, but they are not suitable for everyone. While a diet without gluten may work for adults, there are only a few reasons for children to avoid it, and many reasons not to.
Here are eight vital life skills that children aren’t taught in school:
1. Independence: Teaching children, a little at a time, to be independent, can show them that they can make decisions on their own. Letting them make their own mistakes can teach them valuable lessons they’ll carry with them.
2. Compassion: Compassion is needed to work well with others, to care for other people and to find happiness through making other people happy.
3. Individuality: They need to be taught that we come in all sizes, shapes and colors, and it is perfectly OK to be unique.
4. Welcoming Change: Teaching children that change isn’t something to be afraid of – just something to prepare for – can help them in so many aspects throughout their life.
5. Happiness: Many parents coddle their children in an attempt to keep them happy and safe, but it can make children rely on their parents for their happiness. Teaching a child from an early age that they can be happy on their own, by things like playing, reading and imagining, is a valuable life lesson.
6. Finding Passion: Many people struggle with finding their passion. Helping a child find what he or she is passionate about by allowing them to try a bunch of different things can help them find a source of lifelong internal happiness and motivation. Encourage the adventure, but let children decide on their own, where they find passion.
7. Asking questions: Teaching children that asking questions is a good thing, can encourage their curiosity and help them continue to seek knowledge in different aspects of life.
8. Solving problems: Constantly solving a child’s problems for them won’t help them as they grow. They need to know that they can solve problems on their own. New skills, a new environment, a new job – they’re all just problems to be solved. Modeling problem solving and allowing children to come up with their solution ideas can help them develop confidence and let them know that whatever comes their way, they are capable of handling it.
This DIY Personalized Homework Station is a useful project that teens or tweens can customize to enhance their work space for back-to-school! There is plenty of room for memos and important notes.
Fourth generation craftsman Masaaki Hiroi, 80, loves making traditional spinning tops and other wooden toys. This is his story, in his own words.
If you need a healthy dinner idea, here are 10 simple recipes that are pretty darn delicious.
As spellers from across the country and around the globe gather to take part in the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee, let’s try to settle a basic question: Where does the bee in “spelling bee” come from?
This sweet video of little boy sneaking into neighbor's garage to hug dog went viral as the owner went on searching for "the sweet little kid" 😍😍
This is a story about a sock. It was an ordinary white toddler sock that lay abandoned right in the middle of an otherwise cleared-off set of stairs. I happened to see this sock in the middle of the stairs the morning before I was leaving for a few days. Being a mom, I went to pick it up.