7 Tips for Teaching Children Gratitude

With the holiday season almost here, some families like to focus on teaching their children to be thankful.  The question is how do we teach our children to be thankful and to help other?  Here are 7 tips on teaching kids children gratitude.  Click here to read the article 

Table Manners

Every family has a different outlook on manners. How a child should act at the dinner table depends on what you as a parent think is appropriate. It is hard enough just getting kids to sit down for more than five minutes to eat dinner. But, if you want to reinforce good table manners with your children, here are a few tips.

Eating with a fork - around the age of 3, you can begin explaining the difference between finger foods, like hot dogs or a soft pretzel, and foods you eat with a fork, like steak or spaghetti.

Switching from the shirt to the napkin – also around age 3, you can start to remind your children to use their napkin instead of their shirt sleeve. This not only reinforces good table manners, it will also save you money on stain remover and new clothes.

Please and thank you – if you are trying to reinforce the use of please and thank you with your children, the table is a good place to start. Have your kids practice these skills when asking for or receiving food. When eating at a restaurant, you can also reinforce the importance of thanking others outside of the family when they do something nice for us.

Eating slowly – it’s not only good manners, it is good for your health. Eating more slowly and chewing thoroughly is helpful for overall digestive health, it reinforces good manners and it will give you more time to talk and get to know what’s going on in your child’s life. 

Sibling Spats

Most siblings fight, but some days it seems like they are quarreling over everything.  What can a parent do?  Here are some suggestions on how to stop sibling fights.  Click here to read the article.

Dealing with Bullies

Schools, the press, and society are starting to improve our countries response to bullying. But, bullying still occurs every day.  As parents and guardians, we want to protect our little ones but we cannot be there all the time. What steps can you take to help prepare your child to deal with bullies? Here are a few tips:

• Tell your child to avoid the bully as much as possible. Stay away from him/her on the playground.
• Have your child practice standing and walking with confidence. Bullies usually pick on people who are smaller and physically weaker than they are, or who they feel will not retaliate
• Don't let a bully make your child feel bad. Teach your child that when someone says something bad about them to think about something positive about yourself.
• Don't reward the bully with tears. The bully wants to hurt your feelings, so act like his name-calling and taunts don't hurt.
• Teach your child to use humor when dealing with a bully. Throwing a joke back at a bullies taunting, can help diffuse the situation.
• Most importantly, make sure your child is comfortable keeping the lines of communication open with you.

If you think the bullying has gotten out of control, contact your child’s school for help. 

How to Help With Peer Problems

Your child may come home saying they had no one to play with, or no one likes them.  You may not be sure what to do.  We found some great tips to help your child cope with peer problems. Click here to read the article.

Kids & Stress

As adults, we deal with stress every day and we learn coping skills that allow us to deal with stress effectively. Even though you may think kids have nothing to be stressed about, they do. Your child’s personality often has a lot to do with how well they deal with their stress. Here are some different situations that can cause stress for your child and some tactics to help them cope.

Babies

What can cause your baby stress? An overload of sensory information or a lack of down time (naps and quiet time with mommy or daddy) can lead to stress in your baby. To help your baby cope, make sure that they are getting enough sleep. If your baby isn’t a great at taking naps, take some quiet time to cuddle during the day. Find a quiet place and put on some soothing music or maybe read a book to your baby. This will help them reset their senses and reduce their stress levels.

Kids

What can cause stress in school-aged kids? School work and exams, activities such as sports, and problems with friends such as cliques, can all cause your child stress. In addition, children often pick up on major stresses their parents are going through, no matter how good we think we are at hiding problems from our children.

One way to help your school-aged child to deal with their stress is by talking to them. Let them know that stress is a normal part of everyday life. Ask them about their problems. Tell them that you are always available to help them with their problems. Real issues can arise when your child feels alone and unable to seek help for their problems.

Tweens/Teens

This is a time of life when major stress often hits children. Stresses can be caused by relationships, school work, and overall pressure to succeed academically, socially, and in activities. Throw hormones in with stress and you get rapidly changing moods and emotional outbursts or, what’s also known as the typical teenager.

Talk is also a good way to help your teen cope with stress. However, it might be more difficult to get them to talk. Again, let them know that they are not alone and you are always available to help them solve even the toughest problems.

Begin to teach your teen coping mechanisms that work for you. For example, limiting distractions so you can focus, or taking a big problem and breaking it down into smaller more easily solved issues.

Remember, if you think your child’s moods, emotions and ability to cope with stress are a bigger problem than they can handle, seek the help of you family doctor.

Combat Toy Room Clutter

With the holidays sneaking up quickly some parents start to purge the toys their children don’t play with anymore to make room for the new ones coming in.  The hardest part is trying to organize the toys and figure out where to put everything while making the room accessible for the kids.  Here are a few tips to help combat the toy room clutter.  Click here to read the article.

What to do with all that Halloween Candy

Wow that Halloween is over, you may be wondering what to do with the candy your kids received during all the Halloween festivities.  We’ve searched the web and found the following creative uses for leftover Halloween candy.

Baking

Many candies melt in the heat of the oven, leaving you with a yummy treat. Here are some possible recipes:

• Add candy to homemade ice cream
• Bake cookies with peanut butter cups or M&M’s
• Bake Peppermint Patty brownies

Use Your Candy for Play

Try using candy for play and learning activities:

• Use candy as building blocks.
• Teach your toddler to sort the candy into sizes, colors and shapes.
• Teach them matching by matching up like candies.
• Count the candy by fives or tens.

Use Your Candy for Crafts

Store the candy away for a few weeks and then use it to decorate a gingerbread house or save it for advent calendars.

Teach Your Child About Charity

There are many charities that will accept candy donations.