Tag: Children

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Development Fun Health

Developmental Advantages Connected to Early Swimming

Children who learn to swim by the age of five are found to be comparatively smarter than their counterparts. These children gain significant developmental advantages while learning to swim. An extensive study revealed that children who learned swimming early experienced more rapid physical and cognitive skill development than other kids.

Physical and visual Motor skills

Swimming gives developmental advantages in balancing the child’s body and its self-propelled movements. Children who learn swimming before the age of five are more adaptable with many other physical tasks. Early swimmers are also able to grasp objects more easily when compared to others. As they start practising earlier, their brains are also sharper than other kids of their age.

Cognitive skills

Children possessing swimming skills are always at par with others in all activities. They have more proficiency in solving arithmetic problems, identifying numbers and even counting. As they start getting trained very early, they are very good at understanding and following instructions. They have a good hold over language, both oral and in writing and identify the shapes correctly in illustrations. These children acquire good memory skills. They have an edge over others in recalling stories, reciting rhymes and whatever things they learn.

Builds muscles

Swim time helps improve a child’s muscle development at a very young age. Children need to develop muscles required to hold their heads up, move their arms and legs accordingly, and work in coordination with their entire body. Swimming is an exercise that provides benefits both internally and externally. It helps strengthen the lungs, heart, brain and blood vessels.

Improves sleeping patterns

For babies, pool time takes a lot of energy. They need to work extra hard to use their bodies in new ways for coordination. This drains the baby of all his energy and he requires more time to sleep after swimming.

Improves appetite

The extra energy given for swimming burns a lot of calories. This leaves your baby hungry and you notice that a baby’s appetite increases after swimming. This is because of the physical exertion and energy they use underwater to stay warm.

Weight management

Swimming is an effective aerobic exercise which keeps the child’s body moving all the time. This avoids childhood obesity and weight is kept under control.

Improves intelligence

Early swimming has a positive effect on the brain. The children have a higher level of Intelligence as they have been following instructions from a very early age. We also have greater cognitive development.

Stress buster

Swimming helps release stress and frustration in mind. When it comes to children, swimming offers them a perfect time for relaxation and let go of their daily pressures. This, in turn, results in a happier and healthier state of mind, free from all tensions. Being away from academics, such activities are necessary for your child to have some time on his own for his physical fitness and outfit.

Babies and toddlers who participate in swimming use more muscles than young children. Water-resistance helps them build muscle strength. They induce early stimulation of brain development. Specific instructions that need to be followed by early swimmers make them obedient at a much younger age. Completing the complex movements in water keeps the body fit and muscles strong. You must encourage your child to learn swimming as early as possible for his overall mental and physical development.

Categories
Awareness Parenting and Childcare Travel

Avoid Losing Your Child in Public Places

Every parent’s worst nightmare is losing your kid in public places. Parents love to travel with their children or take them out. Child safety should be of paramount importance. Just as we say ‘Prevention is better than cure’ if some tips are kept in mind when you travel with small kids such fearful situations can be avoided.

Dress your child in bright colours

In public places, it is easier to spot a child in bright colours. Before entering the crowded area, help your child memorize how you are dressed. This can help your child describe what you are wearing in case your child gets lost in the crowd. This can also help people in tracing his dear ones easily.

Device a plan for the day

Try to make a plan which is specific to the place you are going to. Point out a meeting spot to your child. Help the child to recognize the spot and its surroundings well. Ensure that the meeting point that you have selected can be easily located and reached by your child. Ask him to reach there and to wait if he gets separated from the group.

Train your child on what to do when he gets lost

Children should be taught what they must do if they get lost in public places. For a child’s safety, you must teach them that they must approach a responsible adult, for example, a security guard, a police or a mother with children. Children must explain the situation to adults and seek their help. Make them understand that they should never accept a ride from a stranger or never exit the premises if he/she is lost in an enclosed area like a mall or park and never accept food items or drink from strangers.

Help your child to memorise a few important details

For a child’s security, your child should be able to tell their full name and age, their home address, their parent’s full name and their mobile number.

If your child is too small to memorize, you can write them down in a piece of paper and place it in his or her pocket. You can also think of making an ID card for your child to wear in public places.

Keep a recent digital photo of your child with you

This is in case your child does get lost in a public place. Recent photographs describing features of your baby will help those involved in the search recognize the child from the crowd.

Consider using a digital tracking device

With the growth of Technology, using a digital tracking system can be of help. This can help you keep track of your child’s location using a smartphone that has access to the GPS device’s tracking signal.

Give him a mobile phone

If your child is old enough, you can consider giving him a mobile phone. Hand him at least a feature phone just for the duration of the trip. In case he gets lost can be used to get in touch with the parents.

Stay alert

Remember that you should not get too distracted or involved in a conversation with your spouse, friends, or other family members. Have an eye on where your kids are and what they are up to. Staying alert in a public place is the best precaution that can be taken for your child safety.

Losing your child in a public place can indeed be a traumatic experience. So when you start planning to take your children out to have fun; prepare them well for what they should do in case they get separated from their parents. This will help the children to be alert and act wisely even if they get lost in a crowd, and will be doing the appropriate things as their parents have taught them.

Categories
Parenting and Childcare

What Parents Can Do About Their Children Lying

Have you ever ruminated why your child lied about anything to you? Analogous to most other parents, does this continue bothering you a lot? Well, you just landed up at the perfect place to know what you can do about it by handling it properly. According to several kinds of research, children tend to commence lying at a tender age of around three. However, this trait peaks at an age ranging from six to ten. Your child might lie to you in order to accomplish a task, maybe he/she is an attention seeker, to observe your response and actions or some other reasons as well. Today, we are going to have a look at how parents can deal with this effectively.

Dealing with children who lie

Here are a few things that you can try in order to solve this issue-

Focus on the solution rather than yelling

Often, parents tend to do this mistake of yelling a lot at their that they get encouraged to do this stuff again and again. As a repercussion, parents fail to focus on the solution of the problem and rather tend to vent out their unnecessary emotions on their children. Try to stay as calm as possible and ensure that your child follows the solution that you have provided. Also, ensure that the child knows the consequences he/she will have to face if they fail to co-operate. 

The role model theory

You must be a good role model for your child in terms of speaking the truth at all times. This is because children tend to follow their parents a lot while growing up. If your child catches you speaking lies, he/she is bound to repeat that no matter what.

Help your child in identifying the perils of speaking lies. You can connect the dots with some favourite fictional character of your child. For example- If your child loves Iron Man, convince him/her that he is a superhero only because he speaks the truth and if you do not follow him, you will be treated like a villain in everybody’s eyes. Children tend to emulate their favourite characters. Use this to your advantage.

Reward honesty

Help your child earn some rewards each time they speak the truth. For example- It can be a penny dropped into their piggy boxes or a favourite toffy which they earn after collecting a number of truths.

You can also lure by saying that if you exceed let us say 1000 truths, we will buy you your favourite toy. But you must not lie otherwise there will be consequences that are pre-decided by you. Let your child understand the importance of honesty.

Engage your child in social activities

Many researchers observe that fussy toddlers lie just because they want some attention or are apparently low in self-esteem. They just want you to focus on them. If this is the case, be a keen observer and engage them in activities where they make a lot of new friends boosting their self-esteem and confidence. Also, by observing many strangers speaking the truth, they will want to follow them and garner more attention. 

These are a few points you must keep in your mind while dealing with these things. Surely, you will see the change after some time. Good luck parents!