All my kids talk about getting every year for Christmas is video games if they don’t go downstairs and find Gears of War 2 under our new flocked christmas tree I do not know how they will survive. It makes me a little nuts since I do all I can to get my kids outdoors. I would much rather give them a pair of new skates or golf clubs then some mind numbing thing that will enchant them in front of the television. Oh well I guess you just learn that kids are kids. Arguing with the boys over “appropriate” lengths of time is just too much work.

That being said I’ve tried to find some tricks for my family and video games. With a few techniques I try to get them outside more. First off I limit their time every day to one hour (they can earn more). I find placing a limit is important because then they know that anything above that is a privilege. I do give them some ways to earn more time in front of the television. That leads me into my second trick. They have a few options to earn more television time, either playing outside or doing some chores for me. The chores is nice for me and generally has a pretty good payoff for them. I intentionally made it with the purpose of them getting around one hour of television time for every one hour they spend on chores.

The number two way they get more television time is by spending some of their time outside. When they go outside and play nice I allow them 15 minutes of gaming to every hour of outside time. I know that it isn’t a huge payoff for the boys, but they like being outside and I do not think it’s a lot for me to ask of them. That option works the best of their long Saturdays where they spend the majority of the day outside anyway. They can play outdoors for the day on Saturday and then spend the night playing video games. Realistically a night of playing games and watching movies isn’t so bad after a full day outside.

That being said I’m ok with one or two ending up under flocked christmas tree this year if it has the effect of getting my brats outside and getting some stuff done around the house for me. I hope they like their games, because I am going to like my “gift” of a little more control around the house.

Considering that 75% of your child’s intellectual growth will occur before the age of 6, it is very important that you begin to stimulate your baby’s mind as soon as they are born. With babies, everything around them is extremely influential on their developing mind – sights, sounds, smells, and touches.  These early inputs and influences help them to learn and grow, no matter what age.  It is very important for a parent to consider creating a stimulating environment for their newborn.  Here are a few ways to stimulate your infant’s intellect.

1. Supply them lots to look at.
Stimulate your child’s visual sense by surrounding them with color. Place them in a play pen like the Graco Pack n Playard so they’ll be surrounded by different colors and shapes for them to look at. Hang a mobile above their playpen or hang colored shapes on the wall.  You might also want to hang a baby-safe mirror on the wall so your baby can recognize themselves.  Whatever you can add to spice up the visual excitement of your infant’s world – the more the better.

2. Provide tons to listen to.
It is a well-known fact that infants respond to music, even when in the womb – you can play music for them as soon as you’d like.  Play a CD of nature sounds for your baby – whistling wind, rainforest sounds, or rain showers – anything to stimulate your child’s sense of hearing. There is no more beautiful voice on earth to your infant than Mommy’s voice – newborns love to be sung to. Encourage your baby to make their own sounds and noises – give them musical toys or rattles to play with.  Teach them how to clap. The more they explore their own sounds, the more they learn.

3. Supply them lots to touch.
Give your newborn enough space to roll around or crawl in – you might want think about a larger size playard, such as the Graco Pack n Play Playard In Bugs Quilt, which gives them enough room to explore the world around them. Play hand games with your infant – paddycake is always a favorite. Bounce and dance with your baby in your arms or your lap, really involve them in your motion. Give them lots of different textures to touch and explore. Different fabrics or toys with different surfaces, for example the toys in the Graco Playard give your newborn different textures to touch. All in all, the more your allow your infant to feel and to touch their world surrounding them, the more they learn and the more they are stimulated.

Your newborn’s intellectual stimulation is one of the most important aspects of their development. It is up to you as a parent to provide an environment to your child where they can safely explore and learn about the world around them. Provide a world full of color for your baby. Play them the soothing and stimulating sounds of music and the world around them.  Give your newborn many things to touch – all the different textures and surfaces you can find.  All of these things are be very influential on your infant and on their mind.

Parent Know How

A new report that has taken over 2 years to compile presents some startling findings compiled from interviews with over 30,000 children. The report, commissioned by the the Children’s Society, presents around 30 recommendations aimed at parents, teachers, government the media and society as a whole regarding what needs to be done to improve the childhood experience of most children.

The reason that children’s lives have become increasingly difficult has been found to be excessive individualism. Leading experts have concluded that excessive individualism has made people more competitive, more pressurised to own things and less inclined toward helping other.

Around 70% of the children interviewed said that parents getting on with each other is one of the most important factors in raising happy children. Children from broken families are 50% more likely to experience low academic achievement, low self esteem and suffer from depression or anxiety.

The increased exposure to television and the media that most children experience is promoting materialistic desires and breeding generations of consumers. And these consumers want to consume fast-food and more television and media.

Britain and the U.S. are the worst advanced countries for well being amongst children. In Sweden 8% of children live at or below 60% of median income whereas in Britain the figure is much higher at 22%.

The report makes some strong but practical recommendations. One of these is that people responsible for bringing children into the world should have a long term commitment to one another. Parents need to be provided with free parenting classes to make them fully aware of their parental responsibilities and how they can meet the needs of their children.

The report recommends that advertising to children under 12 should be banned and all advertising for unhealthy food and alcohol should not be allowed before 9p.m.

Being a child today, perhaps from a broken family, with low educational achievement, low income and no support at home, is an enormously difficult situation to contend with. It’s up to parents, teachers and society to recognise these difficulties and do what is required to fix things.

To encourage your little ones to play outdoors more I recommend getting some good quality outdoor play equipment, maybe a slide swing playset, to get the little ones outside to play.

One of the biggest game consoles to hit the shelves since the very first Nintendo gaming system is the Wii. Not only is this console amazing in every, possible way, but it has also revolutionized the gaming world as we know it! To be completely honest, the Wii is not only one of the best game consoles in the world, but it is also one of the most fun! There are however, a few tips and tricks that you need to learn in order to be safe when you are playing the Wii.

When you bring your Wii home, you will be eager to start playing it. Before you get to that point, though, make sure your gaming area is clean. In fact, you need to be careful when choosing your gaming space, too. It should be devoid of any hanging lights, furniture which could be easily broken, pets, and people who are unaware. It is best to have a space around you which measures at least five feet.

Your Wii will have some tips teaching you how to play and especially how to use the controllers. Pay attention! If you do not, you might find that the first time you bowl or play tennis, you send your Wii remote flying right into your TV set.

In fact, let’s talk about the straps attached to the Wii remotes. If you bought your console before December of 2006, you might want to buy a new strap. The ones made before then were known to be faulty. Do a search on the Internet, you will easily see how many people put holes in their walls, their televisions, or even their friends, because their Wii remotes went flying through the air due to a snapped strap.

One of the biggest points that you need to be sure that you are doing when you are playing with your Wii is using your wrist, not your entire arm. The Wii remote is supposed to be used lightly and carefully, you do not have to use your entire arm or all of the force of your shoulders to get it to react.

Playing games is supposed to be a fun activity. Do not let yourself get angry at the game. If you start to do so, you need to walk away immediately. Breathe deep, talk to your friends and family, and let yourself calm down. You will be able to beat the Princesses in Mario Kart when you get back, don’t worry!

In addition to being truly innovative, a lot of the games available on the Wii promote an active lifestyle filled with exercise. Just look at the Wii Fit, after all! However, all the Wii exercise in the world does not beat real exercise and activity. Even if you are not getting angry at the game, you need to remember to take some time off every once in a while.

Finally, make sure to pause your game every so often, so that you can make sure your Wii bubble is still safe. You want to take as much care as possible to make sure you do not harm any one or any thing.

Teenagers’ lives are frequently a closed book to us and no matter how hard we try we simply cannot get them to open this book and take a look at what is inside. But just how are we going to keep our children safe and guide them into becoming confident and self-sufficient adults when we do not know what they are doing, where they are, who they are seeing, what they think and how they feel?

Well, below are 4 tips that may help to open that closed book at least enough to take a glimpse inside it.

Tip 1 – Start when your kids are young. It is far easier to keep a relationship rolling along than it is to set it in motion initially and this is particularly true when it comes to kids. If we begin literally from the day they are born and build a strong and close relationship then life will be fairly easy when they get to those difficult teenage years. But, if we maintain our distance, or simply do not have the time to get close to them in those early years, then it will get increasingly hard to do so as they get older.

Tip 2 – Find common ground. All of us have things which we like to do by ourselves but it is also important for partners to share interests and to have a few things, like gardening, cooking or hiking which they enjoy doing together. This is not only the case with partners though and should also extend to parents and children. So, look for something, and preferably several things, that you and your kids can enjoy doing together and that will provide you with a common interest and something to talk about.

Tip 3 – Make time to listen to your children and keep an open mind. The teenage years are a time when children often form opinions very quickly and frequently without an adequate understanding of the subject to hand. This means that they will often come out with comments that you find concerning or which you do not like or agree with. Nevertheless, take the time to listen to what they are saying and try not to be judgmental. There is nothing wrong with telling them that do not agree with what they are saying or that you do not approve of something as long as you explain why and do not turn what you are saying so that it becomes, or at least appears to become, an attack on them.

Tip 4 – Spend time with your kids. One of the main concerns for a lot of teenagers is that they cannot spend enough time with their parents and this is often seen as a case of their parents simply not caring enough about how they are feeling or what they are doing. One important result of this is that teenage children also often feel that they cannot talk to their parents if they have a problem and need help.

Many of us lead busy lives but if we were talking about a client at work instead of our own kid you can bet your bottom dollar that we would find the time needed to spend with that client. Well, our kids are far more important than any client and so it should not really be too hard to make some time each day, or at least each week, to devote ourselves solely to our kids for a while.

There are many ways to make sure that we spend sufficient time with our children and frequently it is simply a matter of organizing our time for efficiently. One easy way to achieve our aims is to make sure that the entire family sits down to an evening meal and that this becomes a time to both eat and talk. Another good way of spending time with your teens is to take them to school each morning rather than letting them ride the bus. Yet another idea is to play sport as a family one or two times a week. There are Thousands of ways to make time for your children if you just your mind to it.

Parenting is not easy and this is especially true when it comes to troubled teenagers but always remember that millions of parents are already been down this road and are only too willing to let you have some parenting advice if you just ask for it.

The so-called Baby Boomer Generation grew up with few of the luxuries most children seem to have today. Some would say that the simpler life of the 50’s and 60’s also made for happier children. They had less consumer products, less TV, and no such thing as video games. Can children be happy in the early part of the 21st century without parents spoiling them rotten? The answer is an unqualified yes.

Look at today’s children. Cells phones, designer clothes, hand-held games, mom or dad based “taxi” service, and much more. How are children being raised today? Since the boomers did not have any of this, something must be missing in order to fit in all the new. What?

Then there are the role models. Celebrities, celebrities, and celebrities. One has to wonder what our youth think when they read all the “gossip” in the papers and magazines. That is followed by the nightly TV newscasts highlighting the mess their “hero” is in.

We all want to raise happy, well adjusted, children. If you really want this result, then there will be times when you must say “No”. If too much comes on a silver platter, then how will they learn to deal with life when they move out? Will you continue to spoil them after they move out on their own? One parent wrote in to a well known columnist saying that they finally learned to say no, and now their married daughter has not answered their calls for 3 months!

If you give your child everything they desire (which in some cases is just based on what they saw a friend get) you will deprive them of experiencing the ups and down of life; which could prevent them from reaching their goals later in life. We will all be disappointed at some point. Better to learn to deal with the facts of disappointment early in life rather than later.

You have heard the saying – “If you don’t expect it, you’ll never be disappointed.”

“Things” are not where it’s at. Values, morals, and the unconditional love that abounds within the family. That is where it’s at. Keep these principles in mind and raising happy children without giving them the world will be easy.