Tag: Parenting

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Parenting and Childcare

8 Tips on Confident Parenting

Parenting is a stressful experience for most of us. Well-meaning but bad advice from relatives and friends adds to the confusion. You may often ask yourself, “Am I feeding the baby enough?” or “Should I give full-fat milk to increase the baby’s weight?” These self-doubts may plague you till you start feeling you are a bad parent. Which is definitely not true! Every parent makes the most effort to provide the best for the child. Here is a list of few ideas on self-confident parenting.

Ignore bad advice

Some of the common bad advice you might get is feeding fatty milk and cereals for weight gain. Another very common suggestion is giving antibiotics every time your baby has even a mild cold.

Never make drastic changes in the baby’s diet or administer strong medications without consulting the paediatrician. As long as your kid is active, doesn’t have a fever, and retains all the feeds without retching, you have nothing to worry about.

Opt for isolation in distress

When your baby is bawling and inconsolable, take the child to another room till you can calm down the baby in private. Having a kindly audience giving conflicting advice will cause more distress, both to you and the child.

Never feel guilty

No one is born with parenting experience so all of us make some mistakes. Never allow yourself to develop a guilt complex about these small errors. Just learn from them and try never to repeat them. Move on and continue parenting with confidence.

Increase exposure to emotions

Your baby will learn how to handle emotions from your reactions and moods. It is not necessary to shield your kid from all negative emotions. Your child will learn to handle emotions better by seeing you sensibly deal with them.

Follow your gut feeling

Our parenting instincts are usually very strong. Accordingly, our thoughts and actions will always be with the child’s wellbeing in mind. Once you have decided to feed something to the baby or do anything else for the child, avoid self-doubts. Just go ahead and do it!

Ignore Comparison

Friends or relatives with kids of the same age may ask nasty questions. They will ask why your kid is not walking yet or speaking at least a few words! Comparisons are fruitless. Although there are general guidelines on early child development, children learn speech and motor movements at different levels. Even siblings may develop at different speeds.

Maintain a record

Keep a ready reckoner on the baby’s temperature, frequency, and quantity of feed, urine, and stools, frequency of colic pains, sleep pattern, etc. Carry this information when you visit the paediatrician. You will never feel lost or confused when the doctor asks questions.

Avoid over-parenting

A little bit of healthy neglect is necessary. Coddling your baby to prevent a crying bout is not always a good idea. Even tiny babies know how to take advantage of a fussing parent.

Enjoy every moment of calm and confident parenting!

Categories
Development Parenting and Childcare

Effective Techniques to Improve your Child’s Skills

The first and most important teacher in your child’s life is you! Your baby is gathering new information and developing new skills every day. Teaching various skills at the early child development stage is the most appropriate way of managing their behaviour. Instruction is the common way in which all of us try to teach our kids different skills. But the more effective and pleasant way of teaching children skills by example.

Teaching Children Skills Through Instruction And Example

Telling your child how to do things is the first method we use to develop children’s skills. But this method can sometimes ignite toddler temper tantrums which can turn into rebellion as the child grows. But if you combine examples along with instruction, then you are bound to get a more positive response from your kid.

To make your child follow the instructions, always:

  • Kneel and speak to the child as an equal
  • Speak in simple sentences that your toddler will understand easily
  • Use a calm and pleasant tone of voice
  • Alternate between instructions and requests to get the desired result
  • Avoid using your smartphone while teaching your child skills
  • Make sure a distraction like TV is shut off
  • Use hand or facial gestures to emphasize important aspects of the instruction
  • Use props like drawings, posters, pictures, photos, educational toys, etc. to teach skills.
Set an example
  • Demonstrate a new skill by showing how to do it
  • Ensure your child is watching carefully while you do it
  • Teach your child social skills by following a certain pattern of social behaviour
  • Lay emphasis on some important aspects of a particular task
  • Give your child ample practice
  • Indulge in role-playing games where these skills can be included.
  • For instance, you can play the game “party-party”. While playing, you can demonstrate and teach skills like greeting the guests, laying the table, serving the food, etc.
Teach Skills At The Child’s Pace

You cannot expect your toddler to learn everything at the first attempt. Overloading your kid with instructions will only confuse the child. This can result in frustration and potential toddler temper tantrums. Understand the speed at which your child can assimilate information and teach your child skills at that pace.

Teaching children skills one step at a time is a pleasant way of going about it. This way, you will not overestimate your kid’s abilities. For example, if you are teaching your toddler to wear his footwear, on the first day just teach how to wear socks. The next day, teach your kid to slide the feet into the shoes. Once your toddler has learned to wear the correct shoe on the correct foot, you can teach the skill of fastening the strap or tying the laces. Splitting the task of wearing socks and shoes into three distinct steps is an easy way to teach a child skills.

To sum up, the most effective habit of parents in improving a child’s skills is doing things at the child’s pace. You should neither overestimate nor underestimate your toddler’s capacity to learn new skills

Categories
Nutrition

Tips to Keep Your Child Away from Junk Food

One of the most common concerns of parents is that their child eats a lot of high-calorie, instant or fried foods, along with sweets such as pastries, ice-creams, and chocolates —essentially, junk food.

If you are a parent with the same food worries, here are a few simple tips that you can follow to initiate excellent eating habits in your kid and keep them away from junk food.

Teach them about healthy and junk food right from childhood

Experts say that habits and knowledge imbibed from childhood last for a lifetime. Whenever you start a new food in your child’s diet, inform them why it is good for them. When your child watches someone eating food you would not wish him/her to eat, clarify why that is an unhealthy choice. For instance, you can clarify that carrots are excellent for the eyes, milk is good for bones and teeth and that instant noodles are high in calories but have little nutritional value to assist them to grow stronger.

Be an ideal role model

Kids learn the best by watching. To motivate your child to consume healthily, you need to do the same and stay away from eating junk. If your kid sees you eating nutritious food, he/she will certainly be prompted to eat healthily. For instance, when eating out, choose healthier food options such as a sandwich over a burger. If you desire for noodles, arrange them from scratch instead of using the instant variety.

Focus more on healthy food rather than junk food

There is a strong environmental and psychological influence on eating habits. This indicates that rather than paying attention to the side effects of junk foods, you should pay attention to the advantages of including healthy eats. Positive modelling is shown to be more effective in stopping junk food consumption instead of negative modelling.

Make a conducive family environment

It is not just the parents who influence the eating patterns of the kid. Uncles, grandparents, and aunts play a key role in the food decisions of a child. They are also often known to offer ice-cream, chocolates, and chips to children. Have a conversation with them to get them onboard your plan to limit unhealthy food and endorse the use of fruits and vegetables —greater eating capability is related to more health-endorsing family eating patterns. There must be family food regulations ready.

Take your child shopping with you and buy only healthy foods

Involving your kid in the procedure of grocery shopping, checking food labels with them and buying only healthy foods, endorses the idea of eating well. Refrain shopping for pasta, instant noodles, popcorn or soups. Check food labels with your kid when shopping for grocery and check the list of ingredients. If there are over five to six ingredients mentioned on the label, chances are the food is highly processed, so avoid buying it. This shopping experience will give power to your kid and make him/her more convinced about food options right from a tender age.

When your child is very hungry, food cravings reach their peak and they are more likely to grasp junk food or other high-calorie treats. To avoid eating junk food, it is a superior trick to feed your child at regular intervals to ensure he does not get exceptionally hungry.

Categories
Development Parenting and Childcare

Tips on Raising Bilingual/Multilingual Kids

If you and your husband speak different languages, you may wish your children to develop learning these languages. Raising bilingual or multilingual children has several benefits. For instance, it can enhance communication and bonds in your immediate and extended family. The most excellent way to assist your children to learn broad vocabulary in different languages is to always use those languages with them, particularly in the early years.

Raising multilingual or bilingual children: the family’s options

The decisions you and your husband make about assisting your children learn to utilise your languages depend on your family situation.

One person-one language

If you and your husband have different languages, the one person-one language model for supporting multilingualism or bilingualism may work for you. For instance, if your language is English and your husband is Tamil, you speak English to your children and your partner speaks Tamil to them. This model can work with more than one language other than English. For instance, if you speak Telegu and your husband speaks Hindi, each speaks their language to your children at home. If you both speak English as well, you might choose to use English with them when out. Your children will also learn to use English at school and in the community.

It is perfect if you both know each other’s languages so none of you feels bad.

Tips for assisting your kid’s bilingual or multilingual development

Take part in games
  • Read and narrate stories in your lingo, and persuade your child to join in.
  • Be creative and use dress-ups!
  • Play games in your language, particularly games that focus on language.
  • Sing songs, play music, and dance in your language. Children love music, and melody is a great way to assist them to remember things.
  • Search for word game apps in your language for your child.
Community activities
  • Search for schools, child care centres or multilingual and bilingual programs that back your child’s use of your language.
  • Organise playtime with other kids who speak a similar language.
  • Organise visits to or from speakers of your language. You can also take your child to visit countries where individuals converse your language as this can enhance his/her interest in the culture and ability to speak the language.
  • Visit the library and borrow magazines, DVDs, CDs, age-appropriate fiction, and picture books in your language.
  • Search for cultural activities that you and your child can do together to tap into your family’s identity and cultural heritage.
At home
  • Observe radio programs in your language, including popular music channels and programs for kids.
  • If you have friends and family who reside overseas, you can encourage your children to associate with them utilizing a video-messaging app.
  • Think a typical recipe from your community and about what your kid is fascinated in – for instance, music, soccer, cooking, TV shows, and so on. Try including your language into these curiosities. For instance, you can find your child’s favourite recipe or cook it together using your language.
  • Watch sports or movies in your language.
  • Assist your child find secure, interest-based online communities in other languages.

Remember that you can teach a kid a second language at any age. However, experts say that under the age of seven is the optimal time for children to find it relatively easy.

Categories
Development Potty Training

Potty Training Mistakes to Avoid

Potty training is often considered as one of the trickiest features of the early years of parenting. While toilet training a toddler will never be as easy as 1, 2, 3, you may be making your life harder by committing one of these common potty training errors. While several parents are willing to speed up the development oftentimes and make the change from diaper to toilet as effortless as possible, specific mistakes can delay the process easily.

Here are some of the common potty training mistakes and issues that parents should avoid:

Pushing kids before they are prepared

A child’s wish to graduate out of diapers is a developmental landmark, and just in the same way you would not push kids to walk, you cannot force them to potty train before they are prepared and if you still do it, you will be unsuccessful. The key errors parents make in potty training are associated with not understanding the basic principles that the kid must first be able to manage their potty functions, and then they should have the eagerness to do it.

Solution: You should look for signs that your kid is interested in. For instance, he may follow you into the bathroom to watch you flush and pee. Also, you may find that he hates wearing a dirty diaper and asks via his actions or words to have it changed.

Switching to diapers at bedtime, on road trips, or other moments when it is simply easier 

Most of the parents wish to toilet train till bedtime when they frequently resort back to diapers. However, when we switch back and forth, the kid loses the understanding of being pooped/wet or uncomfortable and is getting mixed messages. The same applies to difficult times such as road trips or family occasions such as weddings. While it is enticing to go back to diapers, constancy matters.

Solution: Get rid of the diapers at bedtime and get a few plastic mattress liners in its place. Avoid setting up potty training around large social occasions or when you take a trip, or if you have to, pack lots of additional outfits to whisk out in case of untoward incidents, and take your kid to the toilet every hour to keep such issues at bay.

Not waiting until you are ready

If you cannot wake up at 2 a.m. to change the sheets, make the rugs clean, and do loads of laundry a day, or have any other issues, you may need to wait to potty train. Potty training is an untidy, time-consuming dedication, so you need to be hands-on.

Solution: Choose a potty-training time when you would not have many other pressing responsibilities, such as over summer vacation, or a long weekend. That way, you can dedicate your undivided attention to the task.

Not keeping an eye out for signals

Kids would not just come up and say that they want to go to the potty. Rather the signs are much more important. One of the most common errors is for the parent to not follow through when the child offers the signal.

Solution: First, find out the signs your child displays when he wants to go. Then watch for them and once you spot them, take your child to the bathroom and set your child on the toilet. After repeated attempts, the child will make the connection between the urge to go and the toilet and will go there naturally.

These are some of the potty training mistakes to avoid.

Categories
Development Health

Tips on How to Encourage Your Toddler’s Physical Development

Toddlers develop and grow fast in their first five years across the four primary areas of development. These areas are motor (physical), cognitive, communication and language, and emotional and social.  
Motor development indicates the strengthening and growth of a child’s ability, muscles, and bones to move and touch the surroundings. A kid’s motor development is classified into two categories: gross motor and fine motor.

Fine motor skills refer to small movements in the tongue, wrists, lips, feet, fingers, toes, and hands. Gross motor skills entail the development of muscles that allow babies to hold up their heads, crawl and sit, and eventually skip, walk, jump, and run.

Here are some of the ways to encourage your toddler’s physical development:

Climbing and balancing

One of the things toddlers love to do is take their new walking skills and up the stake just a bit. It might be climbing up and down a sofa or chair or balancing on the edge of a stair.

Drawing and scribbling

Applaud these early sketches, which offer assurance a whole raft of new capabilities. Drawing with a crayon includes fine motor skills such as holding and grasping.

Dressing and undressing

Placing things on and taking them off is a toddler delight. Undressing and dressing herself or a toy offers a host of prospects for her to practice her hand and finger coordination.

Filling and emptying

Your toddler will soon learn that vacating a container necessitates a lot less accurate than filling one. As infuriating as it might appear this dumping is an essential cognitive exercise, as well. Your toddler is beginning to understand that one object, like a bucket, can hold another object.

Running and jumping

Toddlers love to run, jump and climb but getting both feet to leave the ground at once, is difficult than most of us remember and exasperating for the child who wants to, but cannot.

Moulding and squishing

Toddlers love to touch, taste, and smell. If you offer your child lots of fun-to-feel materials to keep her little hands busy, she will have fun while developing the agility and strength of those little hands.

Stacking, stringing, and sorting

Balancing one block on top of another carefully or placing coloured rings on a pole or stacking and knocking down everything excites almost all toddlers. It is also an incredible way for your kid to use his fingers and to work on building and sorting skills.

Catching and throwing

Balls of several sizes to be rolled, caught or thrown develop hand-eye coordination as well as agility. This skill is a physical development: your child will begin with rolling, then go on to bouncing a ball and throwing underhanded before lastly learning to throw overhand.

Rolling and pedalling

After your toddler studies that his legs are vital to mobility, he will love using them to roam. Your child might start by utilising both feet at the same time and then start “walking” with feet.

Pushing and pulling

If he is still learning to pull, push and walk toys are ideal for your kid. They mix the skills that are developed already, such as pulling into a standing position and pushing up from the floor.

Swimming and splashing

Water play is an ideal way to construct coordination and assist your kid get at ease with his body, but it is essential to take your cues from your child when introducing him to the water.

These are some of the simple ways to encourage your toddlers’ physical development.

Categories
Parenting and Childcare

The Pleasure in Parent-Child Bonding Activities

Bonding with your baby is an indispensable part of early childhood development. Children who receive adequate attention, love, guidance, and nurturing grow up to be stronger individuals. The family bond is stronger when the parent-child bonding activities are enjoyable. A family that laughs together, stays together!

Outdoor Parent-Child Bonding Activities

The primary advantage of parent-child activities outdoors is that you all can enjoy the sunlight and fresh air. The easiest and cheapest activity is, playing together in the nearby park. You can walk, jog, race, or play football. Other equally pleasurable outdoor family-bonding activities include:

  1. Gardening – For you, tasks like weeding, digging, planting, trimming, etc. are chores. But when you include your little toddler to plant seedlings, it becomes an enjoyable activity. You can put each kid in charge of tending one plant.
  2. Nature trails – Plan a nature trail to a nearby forest. While walking along the paths, point out interesting trees, plants, flowers, creepers, birds, and small animals. Believe me, even your toddler will absorb some of the information. Kids have an infinite capacity to store knowledge. Gardening and nature trails will also teach your kids to love nature.
  3. Parent-child classes–There are several parent-toddler classes that you can enrol in. Parents and children can enjoy together, leading to a stronger parent-child bond. Such classes may be art and craft, colouring, music, dance, etc.

Indoor Parent-Child Bonding Activities

In bad weather, you compel your kid to stay indoors. They become restless and irritable. But these fun-filled indoor parent-child bonding activities give a lot of pleasure:

  1. Reading competition – Take turns in reading storybooks aloud. The best reader gets the largest piece of cake. Your toddler gets a turn to read as well, and never mind the gibberish!
  2. Dance session–Clear floor space in the center of the living room. Use CDs or smartphones to play the latest popular tracks. Sing and dance together to your heart’s content!
  3. Artwork – One of the most popular and effective parent-child bonding activities indoors is painting. You can use paper, stones, shells, discarded cans, boxes, or any other surface on which to paint. Always use toddler-safe paints, crayons, and pencils for artwork. Try out Origami (paper folding) and colouring books.
  4. Soft-toy party–The most thrilling way of teaching kids organizational skills is by letting them plan and organize a party for their teddies and dolls. From seating arrangements for the toys to the choice of music, leave it to the kids. You are invitees and so are the soft toys. The kids will love being in charge. Keep some scones, sandwiches, and juice.
  5. Photoshoot–In this activity, each family member wears a favourite outfit and you click pictures in different sections of the house. Make sure you all pose differently for each shot. Make a collage of the pictures and frames.

Irrespective of the parent-toddler bonding methods you use, expressing love with kind words and hugs always strengthens the bond. Listen to your kid’s words and spend a lot of time together.

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Behaviour and Discipline Parenting and Childcare

Tips on Teaching Your Kid to Say Sorry

Most child experts’ consent that kids should not be compelled to say “sorry” when they do anything wrongly. But, that does not mean kids should be let off for bad behaviour. Adults should take the opportunity to educate kids about why their behaviour was wrong and learn about good etiquette simultaneously. Forcing a young child to apologise after he hits or bites a friend, may mean just saying a “sorry” statement without making their behaviour change. In such cases, what should parents and providers do?

Teaching your kids etiquettes for saying sorry is harder than it seems. For beginners, your kid needs to let go off his self-esteem and ingest his arrogance to say sorry. Also, your child may not think or consent that his behaviours call for a confession at all. And finally, also if they are eager to say sorry to run away your anger, it is hard to make sure that they mean it.

Why teaching your kids etiquette for saying sorry is important?

Saying sorry is not just a social gesture. It assists your child to identify right from wrong, take liability for his wrongs, modify his errors, clear the air and cure a relationship. For raising an adult who is accountable enough to accept his errors and say sorry, practice the below-mentioned tips with your child.

Teach your kids etiquette when to make an apology

It is hard to teach a small kid what is always incorrect and correct. But it is also vital that you start making them alert of these two concepts in the early hours. To aid them to understand their errors motivate your child to understand – enquire them how they will feel if something similar was done to them.

Explain to your child how to apologise correctly

A good apology is not just saying sorry. Teach your child different “elements” of a good apology:

  • Stand still and straight
  • Make eye contact
  • Motivate your kid to put in language what he did incorrectly so that the listener knows that your kid knows why he/she is disturbed.
  • Conclude with a promise for future behaviour
  • Follow up with a question to ensure that he is forgiven
  • Use the correct tone of voice. For saying sorry you can utter it in diverse tones and assist the child know when it sounds like you does not mean it and when it does.
Be unbiased

Maximum parents fall on two edge – they are either very guilty about their kid’s behaviour or they are too nice, blame their kid and support the other children. But none of these are excellent ideas. Explain to the kids that it does not matter who did it, however, now that there is an issue both kids need to make an apology to one another. If your kid feels awful about it, later on, clarify to him that argument typically happens when more than one person is involved, may not be equal but both add towards it. Thus, it is essential to say sorry even if your child did not begin it.

Though it might be difficult initially, slowly your child will develop a sense of liability and understand the implications of his behaviour and actions. Empathy will grow and you will feel proud to have raised a well-bred child.

Categories
Behaviour and Discipline

5 Techniques for Taming the Anger Monster in Children

A toddler has to deal with different types of emotions, including negative ones. Frustration and anger can lead to aggression, disrespect, temper tantrums, fighting, teasing, etc. For coping with your toddler’s anger effectively you may have to implement specific strategies, such as:

Differentiating between good and bad behaviour

A toddler has strong emotions and some of them may be negative ones like anger, disappointment, distress, embarrassment, stress, frustration, etc. These emotions can manifest in bad behaviour. You can follow a two-pronged approach to teaching your kid deal with anger:

  1. Teach your child to differentiate between good and bad emotions
  2. Explain that some emotions should not be expressed in the form of action.
Setting an example

Your toddler will learn more from your actions and reactions rather than by following instructions. If your kid sees you losing your temper in a stressful situation, how can you succeed in taming your toddler’s anger issues?

Whereas, if he observes that you always deal with stress gently and calmly, he will pick his cue from your behaviour. The best toddler anger management strategy is to set an example by your actions, moods, and behaviour. So if you are upset, speak out your concerns so that the child learns to talk about his feelings as well. If you lose your cool, remember to apologise later. Your kid will learn to do the same.

Setting acceptable limits

Family rules on acceptable behaviour are tacit and usually not written down. If you have more than one child, your toddler will learn the acceptable limits by watching the behaviour of the older kid. But with your first child, you have to set down the ground rules. Explain that throwing things in anger, screaming, crying uncontrollably, breaking things, hitting others, etc. are not acceptable.

Formulating a toddler anger management strategy

The use of anger management activities for toddlers is a pleasant way of teaching your kid to cope with negative emotions. Older kids tease the younger ones who cannot express their frustration except in the form of anger. Teach your kid to move away from such situations, maybe to another room. Distract your toddler by bringing out his favourite toy and playing with together till he calms down. Whenever possible, use toys that have both entertainment value and educational value.

Explaining the consequences of bad behaviour

Dealing with angry-toddler behaviour is not easy. Your child may not always be able to cope with anger and may cross the acceptable limits. You have to explain that there are positive consequences for good behaviour in the form of treats and more quality time. And that there are negative consequences for bad behaviour in the form of extra chores, denial of a toy (or goodies), or fewer privileges. Ensure that you follow through immediately with these consequences, whether positive or negative. Now your toddler will know you mean business and cannot be ignored.

Despite different strategies, if you are unable to tame the anger monster in your child it may be sensible to seek the help of professionals.

Categories
Parenting and Childcare

What Should You Do If Your Toddler Is Too Clingy?

A toddler’s clingy stage is not an easy phase for a mom. There are many reasons why toddlers want to be carried all the time. It may be because your baby is learning to adapt to changes like a new crib, a new room, etc. Sometimes, kids want to be carried when they are in crowded areas or just because they are tired. It is better to make the child independent during the very early stages of childhood development. Here is a list of things you could do to make things easier for yourself

Encourage independence

Your love for the baby may compel you to carry the child more than is necessary. Curb the urge to carry the child and do so only when your little one asks to be carried; that too, not every time he asks! Let your toddler crawl or walk around the house freely and let him/her explore. Be in the same room and just keep a watchful eye to prevent falls or injury. While going out, use the stroller instead of carrying the child.

Take your kid for walks

Walking to the park is another easy way of preventing clingy behaviour in toddlers. Point out children who are running around the park and having fun. Offer incentives like more pushes on the swing or more ball-play time if your little one walks to the park. But the incentives should not be in the form of more cookies, chocolates, or toys. That will give your kid the wrong signal and he will refuse to walk just so that he can get more goodies. You can carry him while returning because he is naturally going to be tired and probably hungry too.

Avoid giving in

Toddlers who always want to be carried resort to temper tantrums if they do not get their way. To avoid embarrassment in public you may feel tempted to give in. You are doing more harm by encouraging laziness. Your kid will learn to use tantrums as a way of getting whatever he wants. So you will need to be firm and not let emotions get the better of you.

Praise good behaviour

Whenever your child has walked around a mall or park, carried out simple tasks independently or is very accommodating remember to praise such actions. Your kid will develop a sense of self-reliance. He will also get a feeling of achievement every time he walks instead of being carried around. Praise goes a long way towards boosting your toddler’s self-confidence.

Keep your temper in check

Scolding a clingy toddler will only worsen the situation. Both you and the child will be distressed. Instead, use a pleasant, gentle but firm tone of voice to persuade your kid to sit in the stroller or to walk.

Look for signs when your toddler is tired and carry your child. The rest of the time, let him romp around and enjoy his freedom. Set these habits as soon as your baby starts crawling so that he learns to play on his own. As you go on teaching your child more self-reliance, your kid will not be a toddler who clings anymore.