Traveling with Kids

Traveling with children can present challenges, that’s why planning is important. To help you get prepared, here are some tips and ideas to reduce the stress and make the trip more enjoyable for the whole family.


1. When possible, travel at night or get a very early morning start to your trip and let the kids sleep. But be cautious, because it's easy to get tired.

2. If you plan to travel during the day try stopping about every 90 minutes. By planning ahead, and using travel planning websites, you can find kid-friendly places such as parks with playgrounds, historic monuments to give the kids a 15-minute break and work off some energy.

3. 1,000 bottles of root beer on the wall or B-I-N-G-O can really help to pass the time and create some happy or sad memories depending on how good of a singer you are.

4. Create a goodie-bag. Toys, games, bubbles, coloring books can all help pass the time during a long trip. Bring toys you can use during your small stops, like footballs, frisbees or soccer balls, which will encourage running off energy.

5. Have your children do quiet activities, such as creating postcards or writing a paper, or a journal to document where you’re going or where you have been on your trip. They can also practice the lost art of letter writing to friends they miss at home.

6. Of course, if you need to, you can always fall back on the handheld games, CD and portable DVD players with earphones.

Let each child pack their own box or backpack of activities that way, you can make sure they will like what they brought and it will keep their things organized and accessible.


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School Friendships: Stay Connected Over Summer Break

Summer can be relaxing, but it can also be pretty busy with family vacations, day trips, and spending time with an aunt or grandparents. Young children sometimes have a hard time understanding that their schedule has changed and why they are not seeing their best buddy all the time. Here is a great article on maintaining friendships over summer break. Click here to read the article.


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Recognizing Good Behavior

It’s common for parents to focus on bad behavior more than good. At the point when your child is misbehaving is when you’ll reprimand them. Good behavior can often go unnoticed because it can be as simple as sitting quietly or doing chores. These are things parents are likely to miss and thus miss the opportunity to praise and reinforce the good. Here are some ways you can remember to recognize good behavior.


Systematize Praise – Set up some time each week to think about what your child did well, or keep a list of the good behavior when it occurs. Then, when you have the opportunity, let your child know what you noticed they did well during the week. If your child needs to work on certain behaviors, set up a behavior chart. Give them stickers for when they are good. After a week of good behavior, reward them with something they like.

Stay On The Positive Side – Instead of telling your child what you don’t want them to do, tell them what behavior you want. For example, You didn't clean up your room or you didn't put your clothes in the laundry basket. Try telling them why you need them to do these tasks. Let them know that by pitching in they are helping the whole family.

Be Specific With Your Praise – Don’t just tell your child good job. Tell them exactly what they did that was good. For example, cleaning up your room today really helped me out and allowed me to help your sister/brother with their homework. The more specific the praise the more your child will respond to the positive encouragement.


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Inside the Preschooler's Brain

As parents of preschoolers, we often wonder what they are thinking. Greatschools.com offers some insight into what a preschooler’s think and why they do the things they do. Click here to read the whole article.



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Summer Learning

Summer is fun, but your child starts to forget what they learned as soon as classes end. You can help exercise your child’s brain by taking time out of your summer schedule for some skill building.

Reading – 30 minutes a day of reading will keep your child’s mind sharp and their reading skills even sharper. Relax the reading rules and let them read something fun and out of the normal. Let them stretch their skills by reading up a level or let them read down if they just want to get through reading time and back outside to play. Just keep them in the habit of reading so it’s not a shock to their brain when school starts.

Indoors and Air Conditioning on Hot Summer Days – the museums are air conditioned and not so crowded during the summer. It makes summer a great time to visit. Avoid the crowds, keep cool and exercise your child’s brain.

Pick a Number/Any Number –to practice math skills establish a number of the day and do activities around that number. If the number is five let them have five pieces of candy for the day. Challenge them to run around the yard five times or throw an imaginary party for five guests.

Study Nature – it’s summertime and being outdoors is what summer is all about. Take a nature walk. Let your children spot animals and look them up on the computer when you get home to find out all about them. Let them pick flowers or capture butterflies or fireflies. Get a book from the library that tells all about the animals or plants you saw on your walk.

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Treating Poison Ivy

The spring and summer months are great for getting the kids outside to play and burn off some energy. One of the issue you may run into is poison ivy. Here is a great article that offers some advice on what to watch out for and how to treat poison ivy. Click here to read the article.

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Wetting the Bed – Normal or Not?

Even the best potty trained child can have a nighttime accident. Nearly half of all children still wet the bed at age 3. Even at age 5 doctors consider bed-wetting normal, as one in five kids still wet the bed. (Source: WebMD). So when is the right time to be concerned about bed wetting? Generally, if your child still can’t stay dry overnight by age 6, it might be time to consult your pediatrician.

Reasons

There are many causes of bed wetting. Generally, bed-wetting is caused when a child's normal, under-developed bladder gets full. It can also be caused by your child;s body not sending signals to the brain to wake from sleep when they have to go to the bathroom.

Stress such as a new sibling, a death of a close family member, a change in school or other events can sometimes lead to bed wetting. This could be the body’s reaction to stress, or a call out for attention.

A Few Quick Tips To Help

· Limit liquids before bed

· Have your child visit the potty several times before bedtime

· Don’t punish your child for the accident

· Have them participate in cleaning up but not as a punishment

· Use positive encouragement and rewards for staying dry at night

If you suspect that your child has a urinary tract infection, diabetes, or some other medical problem relates to their bed wetting, take them to your pediatrician.

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Pool Safety

Now that the heat of the summer has arrived, families are heading to pools more often. Pool safety is an important part of this summer ritual. Family Education.com offers some tips to help keep your family safe while at the pool. Click here to read the article.


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Fourth of July Fun With Kids

Fourth of July will be here later this week and you want to make it a fun event for the whole family. Below are a few tips on making it an exciting time for the kids.

Head to your local library and pick out some books to read to the kids about Independence Day.

Teach the kids some patriotic songs like "Yankee Doodle Dandy," "America the Beautiful" and "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Crafts are always a great hit. Have them make an American flag or a paper chain of red, white and blue construction paper. Make fireworks on black construction paper.

Everyone loves a Fourth of July Parade. If you don’t have a parade in your town let your children decorate their bikes and make their own parade. Even better, get kids from the neighborhood involved. You just might start a tradition.

Everyone loves dessert. With some whipped topping, strawberries, and blueberries they can create a sweet treat everyone can enjoy.

When the sun goes down attend a fireworks display or, have them look for fireworks off in the distance. End the night with a fun game of flashlight tag.




Have a safe and happy Fourth of July!



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