The Most Astonishingly Unconventional Children’s Books of 2016
Pushing the envelope. Pushing boundaries. Pushing buttons. Here’s to children’s books that expand our assumptions of what a children’s book can be.
.png){kind=logo}
Pushing the envelope. Pushing boundaries. Pushing buttons. Here’s to children’s books that expand our assumptions of what a children’s book can be.
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.
Your kid is part of a whole generation that can swipe right before they can write. And because of that fact, you’ve become a little paranoid with how they interact with technology. It’s one thing to curb screentime, cut off the Wi-Fi, or investigate the feasibility of becoming Amish. But instead of taking their tech away (or just running away), why not just teach them how to use all of it responsibly and for their benefit?
If a picture is really worth a thousand words, then you read the equivalent of War & Peace in board books every night. It’s no secret that kids go for big, bright, visual stories. And, fortunately for you, these award-winning picture books are 99 percent word-free and a lot more fun than Tolstoy.
.
It also provides a great opportunity for you to put your creative stamp on things. Let the illustrators provide the brilliant artwork, universal themes, and general plot — you fill in the details. Of course, even toddlers who can barely say their ABCs know that you’re improvising most of it — but at least you’re enthusiastic.
Faced with skyrocketing real estate prices, some Vancouver parents are taking an unusual step to ensure their children won’t be driven out of the city when they grow up. Those parents, and in some cases grandparents, have taken to buying property for young children then renting it out until the kids are old enough to move in.
Their photo series “Pucker,” is what happens when life gave these kids lemons.
Today’s children come to school emotionally unavailable for learning, and there are many factors in our modern lifestyle that contribute to this. As we know, the brain is malleable. Through environment, we can make the brain “stronger” or make it “weaker”. I truly believe that, despite all our greatest intentions, we unfortunately remold our children’s brains in the wrong direction.
A study from University College London found that people who perceived their parents as less psychologically controlling and more caring as they were growing up were likely to be happier and more satisfied as adults.
"I got to sit down to dinner and hear all the stories from the day with the kids. I got to give them a bath and hear their squeals and giggles. I got to snuggle and love on them for 3 hours more than he did. He is the one sacrificing, not me.”
Your child may read every book in the world but if he/she doesn't understand a word, it only accounts for wasted time you could have used for a more productive activity. For you, we simplified it down to five tips so you can follow through easily and apply it to your child rearing.
1. Know The Way Your Kid Thinks.
2. Teach Your Child The Art Of Conversation.
3. Give Your Kid Books That He/She Will Understand.
4. Know The Content That Peaks Your Kid's Interest.
5. Let Your Kid's Mind Float Away Every Once In A While.
At any given time you’ll find four or more parenting books on my Amazon wish list, a few by my nightstand, and an email box chock full of insightful parenting theories and approaches.
Granted, child development is my career, but I speak with plenty of parents in my practice who find themselves in similar circumstances. With information around every corner and our culture projecting constant messages (many times contradictory) regarding how we should raise our kids, feeling like a confident and intentional parent can seem out of reach many days.
Her TEDx Talk on the same subject, "The Expectation Gap," discussed how some parents believe their kids are too busy with school and extracurricular obligations for additional chores. Gilboa's assertions reflect the results of a recent national phone survey of 1,001 Americans conducted by Braun Research on behalf of Whirlpool in which 82 percent of respondents said they regularly did chores as children, but only 28 percent give their own children chores now.
Parents are their children’s first teachers and therefore have incredibly important roles in their development. Whether you’re a stay at home parent or work many hours outside the home, the interactions you have with your children are vital as their first and primary teacher. So often, however, many focus on the role a mother has in their child’s development.
In a day, there can be a number of instances when you end up yelling at your kids despite trying hard not to do so. You see your daughter sketching the walls and despite your repeated urges, she continues the act eventually stopping once you raise your voice. Your son is busy with his play-station and is least interested in doing his school assignment. How do you make him do that? Well, there is no other option other than yelling. Many parents adopt this strategy as they feel it's the best way to bring them under control.
When Beth Laitkep was fighting for her life in the hospital, she found unwavering support from her best friend, Stephanie Culley as she became a critical part of not only her friend's battle with breast cancer but also in the lives of Beth's six children.
Finally, there is an answer to this question, and it is a good one. The Reason Why Children are 800% Worse When Their Mothers Are Around is simple. If your child acts up in front of you it means that you are being a good mom, and doing your job just right.
You probably already know that there’s a lot children can learn from doing chores. Aside from growing up into adults who know how to run a home, children can also learn lifelong values from doing chores.
Parenting young children (really children of any age) is an intensely emotional experience. There is the pure pleasure of cuddling, playing, laughing, exploring, and delighting in your baby’s daily growth and discoveries. And then there are the challenges—the moments of stress, anger, frustration, and resentment—at not knowing what a baby’s cry means and how to calm her, at the totally irrational demands of a toddler, or at the aggressive behavior of an older child toward a new baby...
Back in the 1940s, Lorly Schik began her long career as a teacher in the Perham school district of Minnesota — and she was a wonderful teacher at that. And like many wonderful teachers, countless students were deeply impacted by her kind heart and unwavering guidance.
No matter the age of your little Picasso, these creative compositions are simple yet elegant, making for a stunning wall of kid art. And each activity boosts your child's budding fine motor skills and imagination with basic materials you can pick up at your local craft store.
Have wonderful fun with these frozen dinosaur eggs for sensory play and scientific discovery! So easy to make and play with as part of imaginative, small world play scene and great for dinosaur loving kids.
I see it all too often: Mom or Dad bring in their toddler for their first visit to the dentist, and I have to break the news to them that their toddler has several cavities.
Just because baby teeth fall out doesn’t mean cavities are okay for the baby teeth. Cavities in baby teeth can absolutely affect the adult teeth, as well as the size of the oral cavity later on in development.
Dear father who won’t pay child support, I just want to know one thing. Do you know what you’re doing?
This week in parenting you learned that the reason your kid trusts you might have something to do with you being really, really ridiculously good looking. But if your good looks aren’t exactly translating in the bedroom, a statistician thinks Game Of Thrones is to blame for your lack of literal game. Parents of thumbsuckers and nail biters were given reason to rejoice, because their kids might have fewer allergies later in life. Plus you found out what the hell Pokémon Go is, and while it’s no Nintendo NES Classic Edition, at least it will get you kid outside. All this news and more, because every week is busy when you’re a parent.
KIDS ARE MASTER manipulators. They play up their charms, pit adults against one another, and engage in loud, public wailing. So it’s your job to keep up with them, Carnegie Mellon’s Kevin Zollman says. His new book, The Game Theorist’s Guide to Parenting—written with journalist Paul Raeburn—explains how.
I think I would much prefer this to smashing them with a shoe.
Most school field trips are to places the students might never go on their own: a museum, a play, a nature preserve. The idea is to open kids wide to the wonderful world. This past spring one grammar school in Silicon Valley started sending kids to a very different, but equally mind-blowing place: their own neighborhood.
On their own. Without an adult.
Writing is a waterloo for many children. The act takes a lot of effort and deliberate movements which can be discouraging for some kids. Do not feel pressured for your child to develop good handwriting as soon as he can hold a pencil. Holding a pencil to paper and using deliberate movements of the hand to write letters and numbers is not as easy as it seems. It is a fine motor skill that only gets gradually developed with proper preparation and practice.
f your child has meltdowns over everything and loses his temper all too often, these tips will help.
I am a child developmental therapist and I was also a teacher for many years before becoming a therapist. Behavior issues can stem from so many things, but while trying to the bottom of it, we need to help our child cope.
Make sure to know what to look out for when it comes to spotting a good nanny from a bad nanny. They're the ones taking care of your child after all!
"It's time to stop princess shaming. There are thousands of gendered messages my little girl absorbs every day: the way I curse how my pants fit, the way shopkeepers talk to her, the way teachers assume that I am the dominant caregiver," Vardanis wrote. "There are so many battles to be fought, but princesses with sparkly tiaras may be the least of our worries."
Perhaps the best way to lessen the negative effects of the Disney princess culture to young girls is to expose them to all things in moderation, Time reports. Disney also made an effort in redesigning its Disney Princess collection by introducing braver, "more empowered" and "less boy-crazy" princesses such as Merida of "Brave" and Elsa of "Frozen."
Greater support in special needs education, moving Singapore from tolerance to greater acceptance and the active inclusion of children with special needs and their families by society – these are some of the hopes of parents of children with special needs, a survey has found.
No cleanup needed!
The other day, I reached out to a friend I hadn't spoken to in two years. "Where have you been, Jennifer? What have you been up to?" she asked. I thought about these questions long and hard. Physically, I had been in Colorado, and I had been working on my own business, but I couldn't tell her what I'd been doing. The truth was, the last year had been total, sleep-deprived blur.
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.
Find out why apologizing for your mistakes makes you a more effective parent
Logan Laplante is a 13 year-old boy who was taken out of the education system to be home schooled instead. As a result, he was given the opportunity to receive an education tailored to his interests and his unique style of learning – something traditional education is not always able to offer. In a pretty remarkable show of wisdom, particularly for someone so young, Logan has said that when he grows up he wants to be happy and healthy. At a TEDx talk in 2013, he discussed how hacking his education is helping him achieve that goal.
One of the most fascinating things of parenting is watching your children learn and develop. From the moment they are placed in your arms their little minds are absorbing knowledge and information from the world around them. They’re always watching, always listening (even when you wish they weren’t!) and all the time, their minds are expanding. There’s no ‘off’ switch when it comes to toddler’s learning. From the minute they wake in the (very) early morning their brains are little sponges; soaking up whatever their environment has to offer.
The longest recorded case of hiccups lasted for 68 years … and was caused by a falling hog. While that level of severity is extremely uncommon, most of us are no stranger to an occasional case of the hiccups. But what causes these ‘hics’ in the first place? John Cameron takes us into the diaphragm to find out.
It’s so exciting when your chubby little baby begins to walk, or ‘toddle’ their way into a toddler. But with that comes the challenges of feeding and introducing all sorts of wonderful foods to this little person. A lot of times, it seems they are barely eating enough to sustain a bird, let alone a body who is constantly on the move! How do you know how much to feed them?
If you need a healthy dinner idea, here are 10 simple recipes that are pretty darn delicious.
Several times a month, Jessica Wen, a pediatrician specializing in liver diseases, has a teenager show up at her clinic at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia with an unexpected diagnosis: hepatitis C.
Here's what happens if you don’t “baby talk” to your baby and instead speak like a regular adult.
A college professor in Kentucky is getting a ton of online praise after a photo of him babysitting a student’s kids so she could take her final exam went viral.
Food waste can leave a bad taste in mums’ mouths, but luckily there are loads of easy ways to store fresh food so that it stays crisp and delicious, ready to take centre stage in an upcoming five-star family meal.
Recently, Fatherly.com, and online info source for all things dad, released a list of what it believes to be the modern leaders in providing things that small children and their parents want, need and can benefit from. “We’re focused on highlighting and celebrating those companies, big and small, which are adapting to the needs of millennial parents,” says Fatherly cofounder Simon Isaacs.
Today, we see increasing number of children with autism. So what is it that we need to know about it?
Toddlers' fussy eating habits can leave their parents wanting to tear their hair out, mainly with worry that they are doing something wrong.
But those blaming themselves for their child's refusal to eat certain foods can stop feeling so guilty because their behavior is likely to be influenced by genetics, according to a new study published Friday.