Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Is Playing Sports Good for a Child with ADHD?
Yes, it is. Child experts agree that playing sports is a great way for children who suffer from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to build self-esteem, get exercise, enhance social skills and make friends. Playing sports helps boost a child’s self-confidence, something with which ADHD kids often struggle. Signing up your child for a sport offers the […]
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Parents: The Best Way to Decrease Children’s TV Viewing — Is to Decrease Your Own!
It’s no secret to any parent that children, especially younger ones, strive to be like their parents and do the same things that parents do. So, it may come as little surprise that a study published recently in the journal Pediatrics found that the best predictor of how much time a child spends watching television […]
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Does Drinking Sodas Cause Problem Behavior and Aggression in Young Children?
We’ve all heard the warnings: soda pop is bad for us. Many studies have linked moderate-to-heavy soda-drinking to obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, gastrointestinal cancers and other serious illnesses. Even light soda-drinking (defined as 2 or more sodas a week) was found in one study to be linked to pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest […]
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Getting Your Child Off to a Good Start with a Good Breakfast!
Before we knew it, summertime was over, and it was time for our kids to go back to school. We may no longer be able to fix elaborate breakfasts before the kids rush to school; but there are certainly plenty of breakfast choices that are healthy, tasty, and easy to prepare. We all know by […]
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Things that a Parent Can Do to Boost a Child’s Self-Confidence
Thinking positive and believing in oneself are much more than just feel-good concepts thrown around by psychologists looking to sell us books. Most people who achieve success in life on their own merit, at whatever goals they set for themselves, will tell you that believing in oneself, and not quitting in the face of defeat […]
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Ten Tips for Having a Fun and Safe Family Camping Trip
Taking your family on a camping trip could be one of the most rewarding and enjoyable experiences you will share. It’s a great opportunity to get away from the noise and congestion, and get in touch with the beauty and serenity of nature. A few precautions will help make the trip educational for your children, […]
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Having “The Talk” with Your Child: Tips on Talking to Your Pre-Teen or Teenager About Sex
If you feel uncomfortable even bringing up the subject of sex with your pre-teen or teenage son or daughter, you are not alone. More than one parent has elected to avoid having that talk altogether because they didn’t feel comfortable. However, given the potentially very serious and life-changing consequences of sex, it is a subject […]
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Do Eyes Need to Be Protected from the Sun?
We all know by now that it’s important to protect our skin from excessive Sun exposure, to avoid skin cancers that can be caused by the Sun’s ultraviolet rays. But besides our skin, other organs that need protection from the Sun are our eyes.
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Sunshine, Tanning Beds and Suntans — What Are the Healthy Options for Your Teen?
Peer pressure being as strong as it is in the teenage years, a lot of adolescent girls and boys may want to head outdoors as the weather heats up and get a suntan. But with all that we now know about excessive sun exposure and skin cancers, some fans of tanning may opt instead to […]
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Prescription Drug Abuse by American Teens Up One-Third in Five Years
Prescription drug abuse by teens appears to have increased by 33 percent in a scant five years, according to a survey launched in 2012 and published in 2013 by The Partnership at Drugfree.org, in conjunction with the MetLife Foundation. The survey interviewed 3,900 teenagers in grades 9-12, who attended public, private and parochial schools. Eight […]
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Safety Facts About Insect Repellents – and Choosing the Best Brands
As millions of American children head off to summer camps or outdoor family get-togethers, many parents may wonder how to protect their youngsters from the varieties of insects that might be found at camping grounds and parks. These days, we all have even more reason to worry about bugs than normally, as infestations from the […]
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What Are Good Foods to Eat for a Child Who Plays Sports?
When it comes to food, the great thing about it is that we all have very similar nutritional needs: for the most part, what’s good for one person is good for everyone, and what’s bad for one person is bad for all. Some people, including a lot of the experts, would have us believe that […]
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How to Talk to Young Children so They’ll Listen
Getting a young child to give you his or her undivided attention while you talk to them is sometimes tricky, as any parent knows; but there are specific things that you can do to better your chances of being heard. Even with a very young child, a parent or caregiver should take steps to establish […]
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Things to Think About when Signing Up Your Child to Play Sports
The benefits of playing organized sports are well-established. They include giving children the opportunity to interact with peers and coaches to reach a common goal. This can help foster leadership skills as the child learns to get along with others and follow instructions, while working to improve their personal best. Team sports can also help […]
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Pediatric Hypertension
According to the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), the development of a national database on high blood pressure in children has contributed to the recognition that there is indeed a rise in the number of children with elevated blood pressure. The complications associated with continued high blood pressure, like heart attack and stroke, make […]
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How to Talk to Teenagers so They’ll Listen
The teenage years are a dreaded time for many parents, as teens begin to rebel and dismiss their parents’ good counsel, reaching out for approval from their peers instead. But there are things that you as a parent can do to strengthen the quality of your relationship with your teen, and thus make him or […]
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Important Steps to Prevent Sports-Related Injuries
The following is a break-down of what parents need to know, to help their children remain free from sports-related injuries. Education Doctors treat around one million sports-related injuries in American school-age children every year. For parents, it is important to learn basic ways to avoid injury when their children practice sports, whether it’s at school […]
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The Hygiene Hypothesis — Is a Little Dirt Good for Your Child?
You may have heard the term human microbiome or microbiota, which refers to the thousands of species of microscopic organisms that inhabit the bodies of both healthy and diseased humans. These beneficial or “friendly” bacteria and fungi play vital roles in keeping us healthy and helping with normal processes such as digestion of the foods […]
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Child Brain Development
Astounding Facts About the Amazing Human Brain! The brain is one of the first organs to develop in a human embryo, and it continues to change and mature for a person’s entire life! All 100 billion nerve cells present in an adult’s brain have been made by the time a fetus is six months old! […]
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The Advantages of Homeschooling
Once upon a time in the United States, all children were taught either at home, or through apprenticeships, where they learned a trade with which they would later earn a livelihood. But in the mid 1800’s, public schools began proliferating throughout the country, and most children subsequently started attending public schools. In recent decades, however, […]
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If Your Child’s Pediatrician Asks Whether You Smoke Cigarettes, He Is Not Being Nosy!
Compared to years past, today’s pediatricians are more apt to ask parents about their smoking habits. And while some parents might take offense to that, your child’s doctor is only trying to help keep your youngster healthy. In our modern day, American society has largely accepted that cigarette smoke poses some of the very same […]
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Are Hand Sanitizers Dangerous?
Many of us heard the sad story recently about the Klamath Falls, OR 12-year-old girl who received second- and third-degree burns to one-fifth of her body while inside a hospital, after static charge sparks ignited the hand sanitizer she had just used to clean her hands and a bedside table. The sanitizer then burned olive […]
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Talking to Your Daughter about Her First Menstrual Period
A lot of parents these days rely in small or in large part on schools to supply their children with information about the changes that happen to the body during puberty, and about sex. But it’s a very good idea to supplement the education that children may get in class — and even to begin […]
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New Guidelines to Fight Type 2 Diabetes in Children
The current childhood obesity epidemic has led to the American Academy of Pediatrics publishing new guidelines, for the first time ever, for doctors to follow in managing type 2 diabetes in patients between the ages of 10 and 18. Type 2 diabetes affects 90 to 95 percent of the 26 million American adult diabetics, but […]
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Before You Give Your Child Stimulants for ADHD, Try Some Dietary Changes
The American Psychiatric Association estimates that between 3 and 7 percent of American children suffer from attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, though some studies show even higher rates. ADHD diagnoses have increased by an astounding 66 percent since 2000. Many children now take prescription drugs, chiefly stimulants, to combat the symptoms of ADHD — hyperactivity, impulsivity, […]
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Should Children Take Antidepressants?
While this decision is one that parents of minors should ultimately weigh carefully and decide upon, many of us are hesitant to put too many artificial chemicals inside our bodies. These chemicals often come with undesirable side effects, sometimes dangerous ones, and never is the case more so than with antidepressants. The ongoing, tragic series […]
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Are Your Children Needlessly Being Poisoned by Flame Retardants?
In the 1970’s, the United States government implemented fire safety standards that now have manufacturers of many types of furnishings and household goods using toxic flame-retardant chemicals, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs. PBDEs are similar in chemical structure to PCBs, which were banned after they were found to be linked to cancer, reproductive problems, and […]
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Important Things You Should Consider Before Bringing Home a Pet for Your Children
Around holiday time or birthdays, a lot of well-meaning parents cave in to their children’s pleas for a pet. But sometimes, things don’t go smoothly, especially with younger children, and the pets are soon after returned to the seller or shelter, or given away. Or worse, the child or the pet wind up getting seriously […]
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Effective Ways to Handle Children’s Tantrums
We’ve all experienced it: we’re at the grocery store, or even a department store … when out of nowhere, a child starts letting out nerve-congealing screams that quickly direct our attention to the source — a toddler or slightly older child is upset that he or she can’t have some enticing-looking goody they’ve come across, […]
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5 Ways to Know if Your Child is too Busy
Today’s parenting culture is one of ambition and high expectation. In an age of increasing competition in all areas of the socioeconomic spectrum, we all want our kids not just to do well but to excel. In light of this, many parents forget to leave their children time for the simple things—playing outdoors, engaging in […]
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How Important is Reading to your Toddler?
If you read many parenting books and articles, you have probably heard that reading to babies is useful for bonding and for exposing young children to a variety of words and sounds but is ultimately not that important for development. This is certainly true when it comes to children under a year old, but the […]
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Sibling Rivalries in Children
Relatively few children are fortunate enough to be close friends with their siblings — in few cases, siblings can even be best friends. But in the majority of cases, routine quabbles, and even drag-out fights, are a fact of life in the lives of brothers and sisters. Sibling rivalries can often
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Nerves in Kids: The Brain-Gut Connection
We as parents try our best to buffer our children from stimuli or situations that could cause them undue psychological stress. We keep an eye out on what they watch on TV, the Internet, what video games they play. We strive to prevent them from witnessing situations that could emotionally traumatize them or make them […]
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Does Entertainment Play a Role in the Increasing Gun Violence Among Youth?
The recent series of horrifying, unspeakably senseless mass shootings perpetrated by teenagers and young adults in different American states has all of us in this country searching for answers. What can be causing these increasingly common, genocidal outbursts of gun violence? And what can we as a society do to change things? Most of us […]
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Raise Kids Who are Smart about Money
Most people are not born with a natural ability to make smart financial decisions. As a species we are not designed to think about the long-term consequences of our actions, and the allure of the short-term can be powerful. That is why
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What to do With an Underachieving Child
Getting a child to live up to his or her full potential is one of the most challenging things about being a parent. On one hand, we do not want our children to feel that we are putting undue pressure on them to do things they may not necessarily want to do. On the other, […]
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Survival Tips for the Toddler Years
If you are a new parent, most of what you have heard about the year or two immediately following infancy is probably negative. You hear about the terrible twos, temper tantrums, disobedient children who get into everything, and the like. But while there are certainly some gigantic challenges to raising a toddler, this period becomes […]
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The 5 Keys to Being a Great Parent
For anyone who has never raised a child, the idea of parenting might seem like a rather simple thing on a day-to-day basis. After all—how complicated can it be? Just try to be a good role model, attend to your child’s needs, and make sure your child learns the rules of acceptable behavior. But of […]
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Teaching Kids to Love Nature
In an age of growing disconnection between people and nature, many parents find it challenging to instill in their children a sense of appreciation for all that the earth has to offer. In many cases, nature is remote and not easily accessible, while electronics and media are immediately available, and many busy parents understandably go […]
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5 Things Teens Do Not Tell Their Parents
As kids grow, it can be difficult for parents to let go of the parent-child dynamic that was established during the early years. Teens might still be far from fully formed adults, but they are unique individuals with strong senses of themselves, and much of their behavior is oriented toward growing and becoming adults. For […]
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Teaching Your Kids a Good Work Ethic
Many children are not predisposed to working hard and carrying out their responsibilities with enthusiasm. In fact, most kids must be taught these things, often with great hardship and frustration for the parents. Kids want to play and enjoy their idle time—which is perfectly natural and even healthy to some degree—and typically do not take […]
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Homework Headaches? 6 Tips for Parents of Young Children
Few children are predisposed to diving into homework with enthusiasm. Most have to be taught the discipline and sense of duty required to stay on task and get the often boring work done on time. Teachers can only do so much. When it comes to instilling good school habits at home, parents must play an […]
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Keep Your Marriage Strong After Having Kids
Many healthy, loving couples are not fully prepared for the challenges of having children. These challenges are difficult to foresee, and. almost no couple is immune to them. Even couples who have never been through a serious argument before having children can be tested by all the new tensions and pressures that come with bringing […]
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The 5 Most Common Parenting Mistakes
Parenting is a process of continuous learning and adjustment, and no parent makes it through unscathed. Many mistakes parents make are easily recognizable and can be fixed right away, while others are only visible with the benefit of hindsight. But while no parent can be perfect, it is possible to
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Helping Your Child Lose Weight
Because we love our children unconditionally, it is very easy for parents to become blind to any physical problems their kids may have. When a child becomes overweight, parents tend to think he or she is just a little plump or that it is just a passing phase that will end at the next growth […]
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Child Speech Development: What’s Normal?
Most parents understand that children develop at different rates, and that this is as true for speech development as anything else. Yet if you are the parent of a two-year-old who has barely started to speak, a five-year-old who has trouble making himself understood, or a ten-year-old who is unusually quiet, it is only natural […]
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Encouraging Independence in Your Young Child
As much as we love our children, parents need to have lives of their own, and they cannot spend every waking hour supervising children. Of course, we do not begrudge infants and toddlers their need for constant attention, but growing children need to develop a sense of independence. Not only does it give parents
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Kids and Sports: The Parents’ Role
The benefits of organized sports for children cannot be overestimated. Even when a child is not particularly sports-oriented or does not excel on the playing field, the experience itself is valuable. It teaches kids how to work with others and how to take instruction, it introduces them to teamwork, competition, and the importance of practice, […]
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Childhood Fears and Anxiety: What Can Parents Do?
A certain amount of fear and anxiety is a natural part of life and childhood. It is what drives us to take precautions and to keep ourselves and our families safe. In children, while fear and anxiety are often illogical, they are in many respects an important part of growing up. But in some children […]
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Finding Safe Toys for Toddlers
For young children, toys come with numerous benefits. Not only are they fun, but they also stimulate the imagination and help with learning. But there is a serious side to toys; each year, millions of children are treated in emergency rooms for toy-related injuries, and tragedy can result from poor choices of toys or inadequate […]
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What to do if Your Child is a Reluctant Reader
For young children, being able to read is an important foundation for all later education. But some children do not take to it as well as others. Some have difficulty learning how to read and hence cannot have fun doing it, while others simply do not enjoy books as much as their parents would like […]
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Why Is Autism On The Rise?
Here in the UK about one in one hundred people have an autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) which could be conditions such as Asperger syndrome (AS) or autism. The reason the term ‘spectrum’ is used is because the symptoms of these disorders are very varied. Children with an ASD generally are similar in that they find […]
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I want to Go Back to Work but I Have Lost My Confidence
It seems to be a common factor that when women are considering going back to work after taking time off to look after their children, a feeling of insecurity and lack of confidence overwhelms them and puts them off the idea. A long time out of the work place makes some women feel that simple […]
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Teenagers and Acne: What Parents Need to Know
Acne is a very common concern during adolescence, and virtually every teen deals with it to some degree. Even small acne breakouts can be cause for anxiety, and serious acne problems can lead to depression and social delays. So from the parental perspective, acne is not to be taken lightly just because it happens to […]
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How To Conquer The Homework Battle
Threatening, bribing and punishing are futile methods to use when attempting to get your child to do her homework. Let us be clear, most children do not like to sit down to do their homework after being at school all day. You cannot make your child do her homework or make her enjoy it. You […]
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Playground Safety: Not Just for Overprotective Parents
For both parents and children, there is something magical about a playground. It gives the child an opportunity to play freely in a safe outdoor environment and to interact with other kids, and it gives parents the chance to sit back and relax in the fresh air while the child plays. But of course, while […]
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How Can I Help My Shy Toddler?
Your child has her own unique personality. She may be shyer than some or more outgoing. The way you respond to her basic temperament greatly affects and influences her. Sensitive and encouraging parents can help a shy child and abusive parents can make an outgoing, lively child feel withdrawn and disconnected. To help a shy […]
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Getting your teen to talk about his or her feelings
Many 21st-century parents are very conscious of the importance of keeping the lines of communication open with their teens. This often comes at the expense of old-fashioned discipline and parent-child hierarchy, but for many parents the trade-off is worth it. In exchange for that old-fashioned stuff, you get a strong emotional connection with your child […]
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Help! My Toddler Is Swearing!
You may be stunned to hear your little angel say a swear word! Many parents experience these shocks at some point so do not fret! This often happens as children begin to explore language. It happens because they have heard someone else say it in frustration and they want to express the same emotion or […]
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Sibling Rivalry: What’s Normal, and When to Get Involved
Sibling relationships can be among the most complex in the world. With our siblings we share a special familiarity, plus lots of shared experiences that give rise to a unique understanding. With siblings, there are few secrets and very little mystery. Your siblings see you at your best and your worst, and they have known […]
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My Teenager Has Acne, How Can I Help?
Acne can inflict the young and the old but is most common during our teenage years. The acne that teenagers suffer from is called acne vulgaris and is triggered by puberty’s reproductive hormones surging through their bodies. These raging hormones make the sebaceous glands enlarge and increase the production of sebum. The pores produce a […]
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What to Do About a Child’s Nightmares and Night Terrors
Everyone, no matter how old, has nightmares from time to time. Some adults remember their dreams more clearly than others, but we all have at least a few memories of nights and mornings when we woke in sheer terror, then felt that sense of relief that comes from the realization that it was all just […]
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Keep Your Kids Learning Through the Summer
No student remembers every single thing she learns in school. Even over the course of a school day, many things will go in a child’s ear and out the other. And as any parent who is active in the educational process knows, kids are wildly inconsistent with their learning. They learn some things with little […]
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How to Keep Your Teen Out of Trouble: 10 Tips
Teens are naturally rebellious, and when you combine this with all the potentially destructive influences that today’s teens are exposed to, it is not surprising that the percentage of young people who have been arrested at least once has grown in recent years. And these incidents can have lifelong repercussions. Even a minor offense such […]
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I Want To Be A Good Grandparent!
As a new grandparent you want to be the best you can be! Your new role is not as daunting as becoming a first time parent but many things have undoubtedly changed since your own children were little. With so many more mothers returning to work childcare is required more often and many grandparents find […]
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Should I Give My Child Omega-3 Fish Oil Supplements?
If your child is not eating a meal of fatty fish like salmon or sardines at least once a week then it is a good idea to give him a daily fish oil supplement. Oily fish includes salmon, mackerel, sardines, trout, eel, pilchards and fresh tuna and if your child eats a meal with one […]
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Help! My Child Is So LAZY!
As a parent of a seemingly lazy child you may feel very frustrated with attempts to motivate him. Some parents are baffled by their children being so different in their levels of activity. Children are different and some are inherently more active than others but few are naturally lazy. Often a child’s energy is being […]
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Help! My Child Is Sleepwalking!
If you are shocked to find your child sleepwalking rest assured that it is fairly common in childhood and not usually anything to worry about. It can be triggered by stress, illness or not enough sleep but with most sleepwalkers it is not a sign that they are psychologically disturbed. There are risks associated with […]
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What Parents Need to Know About Cutting
Cutting—or, as it is known in medical circles, self-injury—has gotten a lot of attention over the last few years, and there is a growing awareness that it is a serious issue among teens, not just due to the physical harm it causes but also because it is often a symptom of deeper emotional problems. Still, […]
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Should Kids Be Allowed to Have Caffeine?
Many parents have strange approaches to giving their kids caffeine. On one hand, we do not think of coffee and even tea as being appropriate beverages for young children, yet on the other hand, many parents allow their children to drink soft drinks practically to their hearts’ content. And while soft drinks are lower in […]
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Had Enough of the Backchat?
Do you feel exasperated dealing with backchat and disrespectful behaviour from your children? It can be difficult to handle your children’s bad manners, rudeness, swearing, sarcasm or cheekiness and most parents complain about it at some point. Think about why your child might be behaving this way as there are
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Early Childhood Teeth Care: The Basics
Much confusion surrounds the issue of how to help young children achieve good dental care. Because we know that those early teeth are going to fall out after a couple of years, many parents assume that early childhood dental care is not a priority and that kids do not need the kind of brushing routine […]
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Alcohol and Your Teenager
Alcohol is considered socially acceptable as long as it is drunk moderately but it can cause mixed messages being communicated to our young people. We tell our children drinking is bad for them but they then see us consuming alcohol and sometimes too much at social occasions. What do you do if you discover your […]
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Children’s Growing Pains: What Can Parents Do?
That kids experience growing pains is no myth. At times of growth (and kids do grow at uneven rates), to feel actual pain in the bones, muscles, and joints is quite common. Its prevalence is difficult to measure, but it is believed that as many as half of all children experience growing pains regularly. As […]
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Parenting Tactics That Damage Your Child’s Self Esteem
Be aware that even though you feel you are doing your very best raising your child, sometimes your parenting strategies can be damaging to your child’s self-esteem and the parent-child relationship. Your child needs to grow up with a healthy level of self-esteem to be more resilient to the lessons learnt and the knocks taken […]
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Does My Child Have OCD?
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is an anxiety disorder and is characterised by repetitive and unwanted thoughts. These obsessions create actions made by the sufferer as they try to eradicate the anxious thoughts which are compulsions. OCD cases vary from mild to severe and manifest in different ways. With children suffering from OCD their obsessive thoughts can […]
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Encouraging Your Budding Little Artist
Watching your child expressing herself through painting and drawing is wonderful. As your child grows up she will continually explore and experiment though painting and drawing if she enjoys this medium. There are many artistic activities and materials that you can introduce to her over the years, to nurture her creativity.
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Are You Worried About Your Child’s Speech?
You may be concerned that your child is having difficulty with his speech. There are common problems that are often diagnosed and this is a guide to how you can detect them, how to help your child and also how you can seek professional help.
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Amber Alerts – What to Do in Case Your Child Goes Missing
It is one of every parent’s worse nightmares. You take your eye off your child for a minute only to find her gone when you turn around. Or one day he does not get home from school at the normal time. Or she goes outside to play and does not come back in. Scenarios like […]
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How to Raise a Musical Child
When it comes to educating children, a lot of focus is placed on practical skills like reading and math, which are undoubtedly important. But we should raise our children to be well-rounded individuals, and this involves teaching them forms of creative self-expression. While different kids have different talents-some are good at drawing, some can dance […]
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Developing Your Child’s Handwriting Skills
By Lisa Pecos With the rise of computers and electronic gadgets as tools for all types of school-related activities, kids spend far less time writing by hand than they used to. As a result, many people fear that the ancient art of handwriting is bound to become a thing of the past. While this is […]
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Tips for Helping Your Child with Homework
By Lisa Pecos All parents want to see their children succeed in school, and studies have shown that kids whose parents are more involved in their educations are more likely to do well. Thus, helping your child with his or her homework should be a no-brainer, but it is not always so simple. In the […]
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Should Kids Get Their Own Cell Phones?
By Marc Courtiol Although it may sometimes be hard to imagine life without cellphones, most grownups can recall a time when we were not all in constant touch with one another, and when every household shared a single stationary phone. And because most of today’s parents grew up in that world, many have a somewhat […]
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Welcoming a Second Child: How to Handle the Change
By Lisa Pecos Having a first child is one of the most difficult things you will ever have to do. From the middle stages of pregnancy until those blessed later months of the first year when the baby gets less fussy and more predictable, you are put through a series of challenges that test every […]
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Helping Your Teen Learn to Drive Safely
By Jamell Andrews Because driving is such a routine thing for so many adults, we tend to forget what a serious act it is to get behind the wheel. A car is a massive, potentially dangerous piece of machinery, and operating one comes with a world of adult responsibilities. So it is hard for many […]
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How to Get a Child Off the Couch and Active
By Jamell Andrews Getting kids away from their TVs, computers, and gadgets is one of the greatest challenges today’s parents face, and it is not getting any easier. Many parents understandably want their kids to be up to date with all the modern technology, but for every gadget and game our children gain, something is […]
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Leaving Your Child Home Alone
By Lisa Pecos In the early years of a child’s life, parents are forced to do whatever they have to do to make sure the child is supervised at all times. But once the child reaches a certain age, the issue starts to become fuzzier. Most well-behaved kids reach a point-generally in their preteens or […]
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Kids and Homework: What Can Parents Do?
By Jamell Williams When sending our kids to school, we expect the majority of their education to take place during the six or so hours per day when they are actually in the classroom. But for parents, it is important to realize that education needs to be reinforced in the home. This means not only […]
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The Negative Effects of the Media on Teens
By Lisa Pecos Today’s kids plug into media at an earlier age than their predecessors, and the amount of media they consume is staggering compared to the habits of past generations. According to a recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average child between the age of eight and 18 consumes media for seven […]
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Hosting a Princess Tea Party
By Chris Molnar Oh the princess tea party — it’s practically a rite of passage for little girls everywhere. At some point your daughter will embrace this phase and celebrate it for all the dainty beauty that it is. This makes for the perfect theme of a party and your little princess can truly celebrate.
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What to Do About a Shy Child
By Jamell Andrews Most children experience some degree of shyness in certain social situations. For example, some young kids are naturally afraid of grownup strangers, and some are shy around kids of the opposite sex. For others, the problem can be more general; they may seem to lag behind their peers in social development, and […]
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Setting and Enforcing Kids’ Bedtime
By Jamell Andrews For parents, getting kids to go to bed at certain times is one of those ongoing struggles that over the years can reach epic proportions. Kids have a powerful, seemingly inborn desire to guide their own sleeping patterns, and for parents there is just no easy way to subvert this force. Granted, […]
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Spread Your Wings and Fly…
In the early evening I would sit outside under the tree near our house and watch the birds. One day I saw a Blue Jay come and chase the other birds away if they got to close. I noticed that every time she did that, 2 little Blue Jays would fly up and eat the […]
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It’s OK to be Different
Our son Michael was potty trained at nine months and spoke in sentences at 12 months old. At age two, he would listen to Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite over and over. When a friend gave my husband and I tickets to see the Nutcracker one holiday season, I cringed! Mike did stand up comedy at the […]
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10 Tasks New Parents Should Master
Even if you have read all the books and been to all the classes, you cannot know exactly what it is like to be a parent until it actually happens. Every new parent encounters surprises and unexpected challenges. And while most of these challenges are easily overcome, they are quite serious given the fact that […]
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How to Encourage Kids to Love Reading
With the rise of television, video games, and now the internet and digital devices, many are worried that the old habit of sitting down and reading a good book is on its way out with the coming generation. But while the act of reading is certainly undergoing change, reading is still a fundamental component of […]
Got any book recommendations?