Posts Tagged ‘child’

Sometimes it can be difficult to get your children to understand the effects that sun can have on them, but it so important to teach your children how to be sun smart.  By teaching them, the will have a lower risk of skin cancer.  Many people today wish they had been more cautious while in the sun in the earlier years. 

One idea on how help your child learn about being sun smart is to consider sun safety to be like a seat belt.  You wouldn’t explain a car accident or gingivitis to your young child, but you still get her to let you buckle her into her car seat and brush her teeth.   If you make sun protection part of your routine of non- negotiable things that you do in order to stay safe, your child will be more accepting. Read the rest of this entry »

Nearly all of us have nightmares from time to time, but these often terrifying dreams can be especially difficult for children. It is very typical for kids to want to be near their parents after having a nightmare of scary dream. When your child comes to you in the middle of the night after being frightened by a nightmare, it is usually best not to have him sleep in your room for the rest of the night. Offering to let your son or daughter sleep in your bed can send a message that you don’t believe he or she can feel safe alone. Generally speaking, the best thing you can do is to comfort your child and let him know that you believe he can overcome his fears.

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Just about everyone can remember getting yelled at as a child for sitting too close to the television. Our moms assured us that failure to heed her advice would ruin our eyes. I don’t know about you, but many years later and I can still see just fine.

According to the American Optometric Association, children can’t harm their eyes by sitting with their faces practically smushing the tv screen. Whatching too closely can, however, cause eyestrain which can cause headaches. While this may cause some short-term discomfort, no long term damage is done.

Talking with your children about family money issues and the family budget can be a difficult conversation. Parents are often afraid of scaring their children by making them think that the family is having money issues, but it can be difficult for younger children to grasp the concept of finite money anyways.

Younger children will ask for anything and everything that interests them. They see the commercials for a new toy, but their young minds do not truly understand the real cost of buying it. It is highly recommended to begin having regular conversations about money while your children are still young. Although the concepts won’t fully register with them, it is helpful to consistently frame their wants in terms of the costs. Try explaining that instead of spending $50 on a new game, you need to buy groceries with the $50. This can help younger kids realize the trade-off and it gives them a feel for what needs your family can satisfy for the same amount of money. Try to keep a positive tone to your money conversations and keep your patience if your child doesn’t seem to understand.

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One of the most common problems that parents face during the toddler stage of a child’s life is biting. If your toddler is having an issue with biting, it will often take a lot of work and patience to curb the behavior. There is always some sort of reason that your child is biting and finding out the root issue is critical to stopping the habit. Losing patience or becoming angry with your child is not helpful, as this can often lead to your child becoming stubborn about the behavior.

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Parents often get concerned anytime their child doesn’t seem to be developing at the same rate as others in his or her age group. One area where this is often seen is with children that have trouble learning to talk. Some children will be talking up a storm at 18 months, while others may not start talking until after their second birthday.

If your child is approaching age two and still isn’t talking, don’t panic. As parents, it is important that you work with your child to analyze the situation and try to ensure there is not a real developmental problem causing the slow speech development.

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Make a game out of cleaning. Set a time limit for different items and see what they can clean up the fastest. Write down the times and find out which items was the easiest to clean.

Pull everything together in one big pile. Have your child pick out the biggest item from the pile and put that away first. Or find everything that is the color red and put that away. Sometimes just cleaning up in a different way is all it takes to get the job done.

Setting rewards and punishments can work sometimes, but helping your child learn how to manage the mess and get it cleaned timely is the key to success every time. Teaching them how to clean their room saves you from harassing them every day to get it cleaned. And it can give your child a great sense of accomplishment once they are done.