How do I Deal with My Picky Eater?
So your four year old won't eat anything but cheese and crackers? Your six year old hates anything with a sauce on it. Your eight year old won't let his lips touch a vegetable if his life depended on it. What do you do? You're trying to be a good parent and provide nutritious meals to your growing children but it's getting more and more challenging.
As a parent and a chef, I frequently get asked how to deal with a picky eater. ...
It's useful for parents to understand the difference between punishment and discipline.Punishment is a penalty imposed in retribution for a wrong action. The goal of punishment is often unclear and may have more to do with appeasing a parent's anger than with improving the child.
Sometimes punishment is discipline. Sometimes it's merely retribution. To discipline is to teach. When punishment is used to teach it can be effective. Other times it's just hurtful, an expr ...
Attention seeking behaviour in children is common and usually nothing to worry about, but many parents worry about what parenting strategy they should use. From always giving in to your child to always standing firm, there is a wide spectrum of approaches.
Most people would say they have no pre-determined parenting strategy; that it comes naturally to them and they do what they feel is best. Others don't feel comfortable unless they have read the 'manuals' and have a pros ...
Allowing your teen to get a part-time job in high school is a tough decision. For some parents, it is a financial necessity. For others, it is a sacrifice that takes the teen out of the house much too often. For most, however, it is more a question of whether or not the teen will get any value from the job or if working early in life takes away from the enjoyment of youth.
The decision you make should be partly dependent on what your teen wants and needs, but that should not be the only ...
Travelling with older kids or teenagers is a particularly stressful experience. Older kids (above 7 years) or teenagers (if they do decide to come with you on a holiday) have a much more sense of individuality and hence they also want to have a say in the way the holidays should be spent. This creates a lot of parent stress as there could be differing needs of parents and children and also some other slightly smaller kids (if there is significant age difference between siblings). Following ar ...
Does your kid's closet look like a tornado went through it? Most kids' closets do. It is hard for children to realize the consequences of rummaging through piles of clothes when they're thinking about what they want to wear. Parents are acutely aware of how much work reorganizing is and probably catch themselves imagining the repercussions of just about everything that their child does or is about to do! It is time to find a way to help kids remember to keep their closets neat ...
There are two basic approaches to parenting. Perhaps the most common one is to relate with the child as responsible for the angry, stressful ways that we parent the child. For instance: "I yell at my kids, it is because they do not listen; I lose my patience because they move too slowly; I lose my temper because they talk back disrespectfully."
The other approach to parenting is to regard the child's behavior as the product of how we parent. For instance: "If my child is not listen ...
Many parents are hungry for healthy parenting tips and effective parenting advice. The Responsible Kids Network offers parenting tips to encourage and support authoritative parenting.
I did not expect parenting to be so hard
New parents may be unprepared for the exhilarating, yet exhausting, journey that lies ahead in parenting. It's important for all parents to realize that just because a person is able to procreate, doesn't naturally provide the patience and kno ...
Since becoming self-employed in April of this year, one thing I've really come to enjoy is being able to spend more time with my almost 3 year old son, Quantum. He truly is a spiritual inspiration to me - whether it's his innate nature to be totally present in the moment, or when he's climbing play structures in ways that scare even me just a little bit (and I'm adventurous!), or when he's running away from home.
Now about that last part...
If you're ...
As adults we have been conditioned by popular media, by our kids and by memories of our own youth to think that our kids' friends are vital to their happiness and enjoyment of life. For many kids and their parents, the thought of having time alone with just their family and no friends tagging along sounds like a nightmare. The funny thing though is that although friendships, in the long run and in the grander scheme of things, are really important at this age, time away from them is impo ...
