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By webmaster
 Sometimes it’s important to just get away from it all. Traveling to another city or another country can give you a new perspective, give you the opportunity to relax and enjoy the freedom and ambience and being catered to for a change is always a plus. A family vacation might be just what everyone needs to reenergize.
No one can say this winter hasn’t been the worst on record. Maybe you’ve been indoors so long you need a respite ” a change of scenery ” like warm weather. Well taking a family vacation not only rejuvenates, but allows the family to breathe, take in sites, engage in activities you’ve never been part of before, and commiserate with people from another city or culture.
All too often we think that having a few weeks off enables us to take out the list of things to do around the home that have been left undone. But staying home can be the worst thing. Even though you’re on vacation, and you say you are going to relax and enjoy it, inevitably you wind up implementing new tasks or trying to finish old ones. That’s not a vacation.
No doubt after being cooped up all winter long, someone has pushed your proverbial button or hit on your last nerve. You’ve perhaps become a bit agitated or stressed out. Lets face it, if you are a working mom, or tend to small children at home ñ you need a break.
Heck, the entire family needs a break. To keep everyone happy and sane, the best course of action is a family vacation. To go somewhere where people wait on and pamper you. Somewhere you don’t have to worry about phone calls, preparing dinner, running around town completing all the errands you have on your list.
Think of it! You and your hubby can relax on a beach looking out at the blue-green ocean while your kids are having a great time building sandcastles. You can have breakfast served in bed every morning, enjoy wonderful dinners at different restaurants, engage in a variety of outdoor activities for the whole family, and meet new people and discover new cultures. Now that’s a vacation.
By webmaster
 Raise your hand if you want to clean? No hands were raised. When you ask your kids they won’t raise their hands either. But, if you offer some type of reward in exchange for their services, you might get a few more takers.
Chores are a rite of passage. Kids learn how to clean and take care of themselves when they do chores. Also, parents get some well-deserved time off.
Here are a few ways that you can entice your kids to tidy up their rooms and the rest of the house where they dwell without all the hemming and hawing that you usually encounter. Having a chore chart will make it easy to keep track of who did what and when each week. Try using a dry erase board.
Continue reading Offer Rewards and Get your Kids to Tidy Up
By webmaster
 As a parent, you want what’s best for your children. You want them to be healthy and happy. One way to ensure they’re healthy is to inspire them to embrace exercise. If they learn to love to exercise as a child, they’ll be more likely to continue into adulthood.
Very young children seem to be a ball of perpetual motion. However, the older they get the less likely they are to stay active. Part of the reason children aren’t as active when they are growing up is that schools don’t stress physical education the way they once did. Parents also don’t feel allowing their child to play in the neighborhood is as safe as it once was.
Continue reading How to Inspire Kids to Embrace Exercise
By webmaster
 Here are a few simple tips to make a family trip to an amusement park safe and fun for all:
- Bring bottles of water, kids get thirty and dehydrate quicker than adults do – bottled water costs $2 at a lot of major parks
- Sunscreen everybody, every time – getting burnt ruins the fun
- Buddy system – everybody has a buddy and travels in twos
- Everyone gets a map as soon as you arrive and you agree on a meeting spot on that map (mark it with a pen!) in case of separation
- Let them pick things from the map to do so they feel a part of the decision making process
- Don’t push them into riding something they are afraid of it will dampen the experience for them
- Avoid pricey park snacks by carrying crackers and dried fruit in a waterproof bag
- You can arm the kids with walkie - talkies or cell phones just in case of separation or a problem
- You can pack a cooler full of sandwiches for lunch and have lunch at your vehicle or a picnic area
By webmaster
Bringing Up Geeks: How to Protect Your Kid’s Childhood in a Grow-Up-Too-Fast World is a parenting book written by Marybeth Hicks. She is an author and weekly columnist on family issues at the Washington Post. She is also a popular speaker on raising children in today’s world.
In her book she provides parents with information on how to raise children who can resist peer pressure, are strong to pursue their passions and excel at school. She shows parents how to pass on important values and morals and abstain from today’s pop culture pressure. Today’s culture encourages consumerism, superficiality and high-risk behaviors. Kids nowadays, through the media, are bombarded with “negative” messages and grow up far too quickly. Raising GEEKs (Genuine, Enthusiastic, Empowered Kids) is the message the author, Marybeth Hicks, is passing on to parents.
Marybeth Hicks’ book is a wonderful guide on how parents can help their children to become strong, compassionate, caring and intelligent adults. The author gives parents the confidence to go against popular culture and stand up for their own morals and values.
By Rick Hanson, PhD
I feel worn out and wish my husband would give me more support. He says he wants to and that I should just give him a list. Any ideas?
Out of our marriage and experience with many couples with children, here’s a Top Ten list (in no particular order) addressed to a father; hopefully some of these suggestions will fit your relationship:Take initiative with the kids – When a child has a need or a problem, dive in. For example, you be the one to tend to your child in a restaurant. If your wife offers a suggestion, take on board what’s useful in her comment, and keep diving in.
Take on a regular chore – Pick an everyday childrearing or housework task and start doing it routinely with little fanfare.
Arrange date nights – Set up the babysitting, take the lead in telling your kids that you’re going out, and be the last one out the door.
Start by joining – Try to have your opening move be one of interest, support, empathy, and what you agree with – rather than withdrawal, detached analysis, or disagreement. Imagine how you’d feel if you were she, if you had her tasks, her day, her life. Try to explore any negative feelings in her rather than step back from them or try to fix them quickly so they go away.
Ask three questions in a row – Every day, try to ask three questions in a row about her inner experience, such as: How did you feel when _______ ? Deep down, what did you really want in that situation? Can you say more about that? How was _______ related to _______ for you?
Give her a night off each week – From start to finish, handle one night a week. It’s fine to have take-out and to do things your way (as long as the effects don’t spill over onto her). If she wants to stay home and take a long bath, you’re still in charge of the kids and the housework.
Continue reading What Dad Can Do for Mom
By Pam Myers, BSEd
 Cyberbullying has increased along with the popularity of the internet. To effectively qualm cyber bullying, it is important not only to know the meaning of cyberbullying, but also how it presents itself and the possible effects. Awareness is the key to preventing any occurrences and to ensure that your children do not become victims.
What one may consider cyberbullying can vary. Essentially, cyberbullying occurs when one teenager singles out another teenager or group of teenagers in a negative way online. This can include harassment, threats and even smearing someoneís name by spreading lies. With the usage of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, it is very easy for teenagers to bully each other in an online environment.
Continue reading Cyber-bullying – An Explanation
By Gary Direnfeld, MSW
Many parents strive to have happy kids. In their efforts, they are loath to see their children upset and seem to do anything to allay the child’s consternation. So, what child wants, child gets. Child doesn’t want, child doesn’t have to do.
There is a belief by these parents that their children will be naturally appreciative and hence will behave inordinately well. However, when their children do not behave as hoped or expected, the parents will admonish the child, advising of how well the child has it and hence should act more reasonably. Typically the child shrugs off the lecture and the parent feels more beholding to the child for upset caused by reasonable expectation and the parent winds up seeking to undo the child’s distress by giving in to the greater demands of the child. A vicious cycle ensues and eventually the child acts with a tremendous sense of entitlement, is out of control and increasingly is doing less and less in terms of reasonable expectations such as helping around the house or taking care of school work. The child does what he or she wants and literally nothing else. The parent feels impotent – helpless to do anything about the situation.
Continue reading Don’t Focus On Your Child’s Happiness!
By webmaster
 Your Family Chef from Parenting Today is here each month with great meal ideas.
Here are some ideas for some tasty meal for the month of June.
These meals offer good nutrition while making it easier to get kids and teens to eat more nutritional meals.
Recipes for this month include Spicy Ratatouille with Feta Cheese. Risotto with Red Pepper and Zucchini. Melon Smoothie with Mint, Fish Parcels Thai-Style, Herby Crust Salmon, Whole-Wheat Pasta Parmigian
Continue reading Great Tasting Healthy Family Recipes – June
By Gail Fernandez, MD
Torgeir Alvestad, a researcher from the University of Gothenberg in Sweden, has written a fascinating thesis paper based on studying the play of two and three-year olds. He finds that children this age are able to negotiate during play. In these negotiations they demonstrated invention, creativity, enthusiasm, industry, involvement, activity and problem-solving strategies.
The results show that children’s negotiations form part of their play, and that these negotiations have a clear purpose: to agree on both how they can be together in their play and the content of their play.
The results of the study show that young children’s negotiations during play vary, depending on whether the negotiations originate in agreement or disagreement. In negotiations that stem from agreement – in other words the children are agreed that they will share their play – the play features efforts by the children to understand their friends’ perspective as well as playful development of the imagination. However, negotiations arising from disagreement involve play that is more about power, domination and manipulation.
“A pedagogical consequence of the results is that adults shouldn’t intervene too early in children’s negotiations,” says Alvestad. “Just give the children time! Negotiations fit in well with the curriculum’s talk of children’s participation. “What’s more, adults shouldn’t intervene thinking that there’s a conflict between the children, as it is frequently a negotiation that’s happening, which requires a different approach.”
University of Gothenburg (2010, June 24). Young children are skilled negotiators, Swedish research finds. ScienceDaily. Retrieved June 29, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2010/06/100621101206.htm
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