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Nanny to the Rescue
America's nanny offers a large dose of healthy parenting advice with secrets for raising happy, secure, and well-balanced babies and toddlers.
Babies don't come with instructions. And since today's parents are so overwhelmed with schedules and demands, they have little time to bone up on their parenting skills. Often removed from grandparents and relatives who in times past lived next door or just down the street, they have no one to guide them through the disorienting world of raising children. Enter Nanny to the Rescue! Michelle LaRowe, 2004 International Nanny Association "Nanny of the Year," gives her tried and true solutions to childcare. Her expertise with chapters titled "Who's the boss?" and "Discipline is not a four letter word" gives confidence to parents who need specific ideas for real day-to-day problems. A proud member of Christian Nannies, Michelle offers foundational truths sure to help encourage moms and dads.
Nanny To the Rescue Again
Faced with multiple choices regarding school, friends, and activities coupled with the ever-widening influence of the outside world, parents of 6-12 year olds need help. America's nanny is back to offer a large dose of healthy parenting advice with secrets for raising happy, secure, and well-balanced children.
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Finding Answers to Underachievement
Finding answers to a child's underachievement is often a difficult and complex process. Let intuition be your guide, knowing when and how to ask the right questions. Here are 7 steps to get you started: 1. Narrow the Problem. By the time a family member or teacher steps in to help an underachieving child, it may be months or years since problems may have first appeared. It can be extremely difficult sorting out the source of difficulties, and what problems (depression, anxiety, apathy) are primary or secondary. Nevertheless, narrowing the problem is often the most first step in finding specific answers to underachievement, and realize it may take some time.
Look for patterns in certain subjects, assignments, homework, or teachers. Are there more problems taking information in or getting it out? Did things get more complicated in middle school or when classroom expectations increased? Could there be a 'silent' learning disability? Could your child be overscheduled? Are problems related to subject areas like reading, writing, or listening? 2. Identify Strengths. Realize the importance of strengths in designing solutions. Children need to feel good enough about themselves to have the mental energy to tackle school frustrations. Underachieving children often they have no strengths and they may even have existential depression.
Also learning strengths should tell you the best routes for overcoming learning or performance 'blocks'. Look for strengths in personal or hands-on learning, language, or the visual arts. Problem solve best memory routes and styles of expression. 3. Share Your Stories. Realize that you are probably a powerful role model. Share your realistic stories about learning difficulties, personal obstacles, and discuss what you continue to grapple with. Be aware that underachieving children easily succumb to 'catastrophism'. Encourage them, and give them perspective. 4. Commit to a Change. Most children are already exhausted and defeated by the time you try to work with them. Encourage them to commit to a change and start small. The answers will be found by problem solving, and encourage them to celebrate every small bit of progress as it arrives. 5. Don't Forget Your Parachute. Encourage realism and don't expect all your changes to work the first time. Underachieving children often need some aggressive accommodations (reduced work load, assistive technology, adjusted deadlines) at first to allow them to develop and become efficient with new styles of processing information or expressing ideas. Don't forget to take breaks and to enlist the cooperation of teachers as you devise a plan for overcoming your child's underachievement. 6. Adopt a Team Approach to Problem-Solving. Partner with your child problem solving situations and crises. Let your child express her worries and desires. Develop a plan that seems sensible to you both, and then push forward. 7. Remember the Big Picture. Realize that many of the anxieties of underachievement come from personal fears of futility and catastrophe. Fears about time running out and bleak futures need to be confronted and carted out to the waste bin. What you need to do is focus on the present, plan sensible changes, allow time to see their effects, and adjust plans accordingly. Constantly redirect the focus on the big picture - how can we help make them more happy, reduce their frustrations, accentuate their talents, and prepare them for their future. About the Authors: Brock and Fernette Eide are physicians and consultants to a wide range of parent, teacher, and clinical groups seeking more information about learning and brain-based solutions. Together they have authored more than 50 articles and they speak internationally for keynote lectures, seminars, and small groups. The Eides have a free Neurolearning Newsletter and can be contacted through their website at: http://www.neurolearning.com or by email at: feide@u.washington.edu or drseide@neurolearning.com.
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Parenting advice and family fun resource. Expert
parenting advice for babes to teens from doctors, teachers,
psychologists, nutritionists, Special Need Children and Child
Development Specialists and a Nanny. Family Fun includes crafts,
games, party ideas and family vacation travel. Families Online
Magazine also provides answers to those important questions, What's
for dinner and Are We There yet?
Meet The Twixters!
There is a new stage of development for parents to consider.
If your child is being bullied - 20 top tips for parents
Keith is now in the fourth grade and he dislikes school. For a fourthgrader, this does not sound right. The reason Keith dislikes school thoughdoes not have anything to do with academics. Keith is being bullied beforeschool, at school, and on the school bus. Who can blame him for not wantingto go into that environment? The basic definition of bullying is when someone keeps doing or sayingthings to have power over another person. Bullying involves crossing intoone's space without permission. Isn't bullying just something that happens to all children and we're justmaking a fuss over this? The children will get over it, right? Shouldn't wetell Keith to grow up and handle it? Wrong. Bullying happens to far too many
children and adults shouldn't be ignoring it. WHAT CAN A PARENT DO? If Keith is being bullied and he is not reporting it to his parents thenthere are some very important questions to address.· Why wouldn't he tell his parents?· What message have Keith's parents sent to him about bullies?· Does Keith's parents have a history of dismissing what he says?· Possibly Keith's parents have had a habit of getting too involved insolving his problems. Tips for parents:· Encourage your child to report any bullying incidents to you.· Validate your child's feelings. It is normal for your child to feelhurt, sad, and angry.· Ask your child how he/she has tried to stop the bullying. Askingquestions is a wonderful way to have your child do the thinking.· Ask how is he/she going to solve this. We want the child to do thethinking before we jump in. See how many options he can come up with.· Coach your child in alternatives. Ideally the best solution is having your
child solve this without anyone interfering. Most of the time unfortunately,
this isn't possible. Share these strategies: avoidance is often an excellentstrategy, playing in a different place, play a different game, stay near asupervisor, look for new friends, join social activities outside of school.· Talk with your child's teacher. Make sure they are aware of what isgoing on.· Encourage your child to seek help from other school personnel.· Volunteer to help supervise activities at school.· Do not ignore your child's reports. Ignoring them sends the wrongmessage.· Do not confront the bully or the bullies' family.· Teach your child how to defend him or herself.· Teach self-respect.· Give numerous positive comments to your child.· Avoid labeling or name-calling.· Let your child know it is okay to express their anger. There arepositive and negative ways to express anger, we want to teach and model thepositive ways.· Let your children stand up to you now and then. It makes it morelikely they will stand up to a bully.· Stress the importance of body language.· Teach your child to use 'I' statements.· Teach positive self-talk.· Teach how to use humor, 'out crazy' them. For example, if the bullysays to Keith, "Hey, boy you're ugly." Keith can respond in a coupledifferent ways:"Thanks for sharing""Yes, I know, I always have been""Yes, today's lunch was disgusting" then walk away. There is many other aspects of bullying to look at: Why your child is the victim, whypeople bully, what you child can do if he/she is bullied, signs your child is beingbullied, what the schools should be doing, handling the school bus issues. Allof these are addressed in The Shameful Epidemic, How to protect your child from bullies and school violence.Visit www.stoppingschoolviolence.com to learn what is possible. There are solutions.
Top Five Ways To Stay In Touch With Your Child
Once your little boy/girl goes off to school, you may find that your "special talks" occur less frequently... You may become disheartened by the mere fact that your child now has new friends to share his daily stories with...
Book Review: The Ring Bear Depicts Turmoil of Becoming A Stepchild
In "The Ring Bear," a picture book by Tigard resident David Michael Slater (Flashlight Press, 2004), a single mother and her son, Westley, love to play rascally pirates. Like many single parents and their kids, it's clear the mom and her son are incredibly close: They've created their own fantasy world about Westley the Wicked and Mom the Mean.
Are Parents Trying Too Hard?
One of the implications of the current trend toward smaller families is that we now have a generation of parents who are willing to go to enormous lengths to give their children a good start in life.
Dyslexia: Is the Shoe Perhaps on the Wrong Foot?
Reading is the most important skill that a child must acquire at school, because one must learn to read to be able to read to learn. The implication of this is that the child who is a poor reader will usually also be a poor learner.
Dad, Go Ahead and Cry
She slipped her small, soft eight-year-old hand into mine. Her face was lit up with joy. And as my daughter took my hand and moved closer to me, I lost control of my emotions.
Is Your Child Learning Nothing?
You send your child to school and the teachers teach them. If that is what you think, you could be way wrong !
While most teachers are good at presenting information to a class, learning happens ONLY if kids actually want to learn. Teachers may have little time for individual work, and you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
And in many schoolrooms today a majority of the class see learning as not cool, with kids trying hard to not learn !
You may think that the school will tell you if your child is not learning, but you will probably be way wrong there.
School funding generally depends on the school saying how good they are at teaching children, so often they will say that all kids are doing fine even when many are learning nothing.
You may think that school inspectors will ensure that kids are learning well, but NO their job is only to ensure that teachers are teaching well.
So is your child learning nothing ? Well many parents today find out by setting their children their own school tests - as by using Math Sheets that come with the answers. It can be made an easy fun 5-minute daily game "let's play our 'my school test' game".
Not only will you then know that your child is learning, but you should find that you showing a little regular interest in their learning will increase their learning motivation strongly.
You can stick to maths sheets only, or can vary your mini-school-test to science or other subjects using questions from their schoolbooks. Just keep it brief so it does not become a chore for them.
If you show a little regular interest in your child's learning then they will want to learn, and will not follow anti-learning classmates.
Then when the school says that your child is doing fine, it will happen to actually be the truth!
Teaching Kids to Read
We are all so very happy to see that the First Lady has made reading a renewed priority for our country. The literacy issue is a big one. Kids are being passed year after year and still not able to read in High School. One issue, which is quite evident is the incredible turn over of teachers. There is a 50% attrition rate of teachers in Five years. This is somewhat similar to Corporate America too, but why are the teachers who have studied hard to specifically become teachers calling it quits?
The ADHD Parents Guide: Questions for the School
Here is something that you might want to keep if you are thinking about changing your child's school next fall or if you are planning to have your child tested by the school in the near future. Let me say this, if you are planning to have your child tested by your district, do not put off doing the paperwork. Sign them up today! Typically districts have 10 weeks in which to do assessments, but the clock doesn't start until you fill out the paperwork. This can be a long process, and if you delay at doing the paperwork you may not be able to get the assessment done until next year!
Raising Boys
The last decade has seen heightened interest in and awareness of the issues surrounding boys in most of the western world. It is common knowledge that boys lead the way in all the wrong statistics, including; problematic behaviours, learning difficulties and health problems. Educators and professionals around the world are looking for ways to cater for and engage young males.
Going Out to a Restaurant with Kids
Dining in a restaurant with kids can be very enervating and embarrasing. Not only that you have to desperately try and keep your wiggling toddler seated and silent, you also have to manage the disapproving looks from other (non-parent) guests.
How to Set Healthy Limits at Work
Back in college, I wrote for a five-day-a-week, award-winning campus
newpaper. My skills were growing and I was earning a reputation as a
solid reporter.
Now, Theyre Bullying My Daughter In Our Home: Welcome To Cyber-Bullying
Last night Tom's daughter, Sue, came out of her room to see her dad and said, "I got another one of those instant messages. It says, 'tomorrow you had better not show up at school or else'." She has been getting messages like this now for weeks. The result of this is that she no longer likes to turn her computer on.
Back to School Feng Shui
Every school year parents and students dutifully trudge through the malls in search of the perfect sneaker or the cool new outfit for the coming school year. However, it's unlikely that the new shoe or shirt will benefit them as much as a new design in the bedroom. That's because a bedroom makeover will create new interest and energy ? what feng shui calls "chi" ? in the bedroom that will benefit a child. According to feng shui, the Chinese technique for design and arrangement, rooms that have good energy, or "chi", create happier, well-adjusted children. Feng shui theories suggest that for a child's room to have good "chi," the room must follow certain guidelines such as that they must be restful, promote good relationships others and generate good self-esteem. Perhaps most importantly, harmonious children's bedrooms encourage good study habits and promote greater success in school.
Drinking and Driving: Will Your Child Become a Statistic?
Just two days ago, another 15-year old child was added to the overwhelming statistics of drunk-driving, related deaths. One minute, he's full of vitality and attending our local high school, the next his unsuspecting parents are identifying him in a local morgue. The harsh reality of this brutal scenerio is sometimes very difficult to comprehend.
The Seven Keys of Being a Father
Is there a fathering instinct?
Do You Have the Loving Relationship With Your Children That You Desire?
Most people with children want to be good parents. The majority of parents want the best for their kids, but at what cost to the kids? If what we are doing as parents is working, then why is the juvenile crime rate so high and gang membership so attractive? Drug and alcohol abuse is wide spread, and AIDS among our youth has become an increasing problem. If you asked teenagers, most would say they don't feel they are listened to, or honored as the individuals that they are.
Is a Mothers Love, Medicine?
Minus all meningitis thoughts. The flu symptons were strong. Headache, burning fever and sore throat. So what does any natural mother do when their offspring takes ill. They smother him or her with a lot of TLC and would walk to the ends of the earth just to take away the pain and suffering.
Twins - Double The Trouble Or Double The Pleasure? Both!
If You're Having Twins..is it double the headache, or double the joy? Probably both!
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