Tag Archives: parenting

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What is right about Technology and Parenting

Being a parent and being a kid has completely changed over the past twenty years. 

Trying to raise a child is a difficult task. Several factors merge into being a parent, which have all changed all through the past few years. 

The presence of social media has made parents often ask themselves questions. They also feel a lot of pressure to have the best kids. These parents also have a network online where they can seek out support or advice. 

These days, parents opt to put their kids in front of screens instead of letting these kids have fun outside. The last two decades did wasn’t like this for Kids in any way. 

Both children and parents could get more disconnected from their kids. They could also become less present because of the amount of screen time. These are the reasons why parents need to remain mindful at all times. 

These days, parents live in entirely different worlds than the one they lived in when they grew up. 

Most times, we have parents who get influenced by specific trends and the environment at the end of the day. It is not surprising that raising a kid is now very different and way more challenging than some decades ago. Most times, when you look at all the new advances that are available technologically, they are way better than those that have been seen since those previous times and decades. 

In the past twenty years, being a parent has changed completely, and technology has a considerable part in these changes. 

Social media is a huge part of technology, and it makes parents second guess themselves repeatedly. 

Social media causes paralysis analysis. This makes it very tough for parents to settle and make the necessary decisions. 

Social media have several ways of impacting children. It also affects parents by making them feel like someone is judging and watching all they do at all times. 

Dr. Harvey Karp is a children’s environmental advocate for health, and he founded what we all know as Happiest Baby. He told insider about all be noticed and the visions that parents idealized on their responses pm social media and how these can question the choices they make over their kids’ lives. 

Well, this is what I believe, honestly speaking. You have a child, and you train a child. It is up to you to enable your child to make them happy. Happiness is the utmost goal. Every other thing should follow. Yeah, I know technology tries to serve as a competition against parenting and what parenting has to offer. But still, parents should know when to give their kids some space, and the kids should know when they should use the available technology with wisdom. As you train your child, parents and kids should do everything carefully to avoid stories that sadly touch the organ that pumps blood to the entire body (the heart, obviously). With this, everywhere should be fine.

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What is Montessori Parenting?

The Montessori system of education was started by Maria Monterossi in 1907 in Rome. Her pattern of teaching children was based on the observations she made while visiting mental asylums in Rome. There, she observed that “children were in need of more stimulation from their environment.” She calls her experiments and findings “Scientific Pedagogy.”

Maria Montessori believes that her system of education is a channel to achieve world peace. According to her book “education and peace,” maria stated “preventing conflicts is the work of politics, but establishing peace is that of education.” She believes that allowing children to develop by their own laws will create a more peaceful civilization.

She was able to publish her first book about Montessori, Method Franchetti-Montessori, with the help of the Franchetti Barons (Leopoldo and Alice Franchetti), whom she lived with for 2 years.

The first Montessori school in the Us was opened in 1913 by Narcissa Cox Vanderlip, ever since then, it has spread like wildfire in the United States and the world at large.

What is Montessori Parenting?

Montessori parenting views children as independent beings and ties their learning to how prepared and supportive their environment is. Montessori stands by the idea that parenting should be relaxed and free, against the normal uptight tradition, toddlers are allowed to play freely as they wish and are not to be punished. Maria Monterossi in fact believes that the only way a parent should intervene in the kid’s learning is by providing Toys and making the environment safe for the baby.

Enforcing Montessori effectively can be tricky for parents who don’t really know much about it. Let’s take a look at the necessary guidelines to follow in order to enforce Montessori perfectly;

Montessori Guidelines

Safe Environment; one of the things that spurred MariaMOntessori into forming the Montessori system was her observations in Rome, on how the lack of stimulation impedes children’s development. Montessori’s system advises that a safe environment be created for children to play. Montessori believes this spurs the kid’s confidence and development towards making their own decisions.

Monitor the child

In as much as Montessori preaches independence in the child’s day to day activities, Montessorialso advocates planning of series of activity for the child, whilst the child chooses what other they want to carry out these activities

Discipline

Montessori rebukes Punisments amongst children. Montessori believes that too many punishments on children will eventually force them into a whole, create a boundary between the relationship of the parents and the kids.  This is sometimes mistaken as freedom with abandonment but this is false, in Montessori education, expectations are used to guide the children towards positivity

Freedom

Montessori advices freedom in the child’s day to day activities. In Montessori, it is believed that kids love to be in control over the basic things that they do. It helps to build their self-confidence, development and instills positivity in their life. Ou can simply apply this freedom at home in things as simple as dressing up, washing their hands, and using the toilet. in as much as this freedom is advised, reasonable boundaries should also be set.

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Top Parenting Message Board and Helpful Parenting Websites

Parents, most especially new parents find it hard to do the parenting job sometimes. Parenting involves a lot of things. It involves taking care of your child or children, making sure that they are comfortable and lack nothing, sending them to a good school, helping them to do their assignments, playing with them, and so on. It may be frustrating at times, leaving you exasperated and without knowing what to do. However, it is something you must do and cannot run away from. This is why there are several parenting message boards and websites to help you out.

If you are at a loss for what to do, the internet is there to help you. Parenting message boards are a kind of platform where you meet other parents, experienced and inexperienced. Both share their experiences while experienced parents give tips to new parents. It is wholesome and worth it. Why? Because there is a lot to learn!

You can also participate in forums or look up parenting message boards on the internet. Here are some good ones for you:

1. ParentingForums.org:

Parenting Forums is a platform where you can discuss all parenting issues. Of course, other parents visit it too so experiences can be shared.

2. Baby Center Forum:

Here, you can find moms who will give parenting tips to help you as a parent. You’d get tons of advice as well as see experiences from other parents. Of course, growing a home isn’t easy but you will get a great deal of help as your kids grow up.

3. Mumsnet

If you need a platform to discuss everything related to parenting and raising kids, Mumsnet is the ideal place. You will get a lot of support from other parents like you, as well as little tips and advice.

4. Parentchum

If you are seeking encouragement and support as a parent, here’s the right place to go.

Helpful Parenting Websites

There are a lot of parenting websites on the internet today. They have tons of tips and information to share with parents that are finding it difficult. While searching for one, it is important to find one that will deliver. A lot of them use clickbait titles and headlines. In the end, you don’t get what you are looking for. By reviews, here are some of the best parenting websites available:

1. Parent Toolkit

2. BabyCenter

3. Cafemom

4. Raising Children

5. Fatherly

6. Well Family

7. More4Kidas

8. Zero To Three

9. Parenting Teens

Whether you are a single parent or you are raising kids with your spouse, these websites are bound to help you. You can also talk to other parents in your neighborhood. Share experiences with them and get useful tips also. Parenting is a whole new journey. At times, you may find it fun while it could be stressful at other times. Have fun with your child and let them know they have such an amazing parent.

Good luck!

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Best Parenting Group Activities

In order to acquire good parenting skills, you need to take part in parenting activities like playing outdoors with your kids, or spending quality time indoors. It will help you see the shortest paths to win the heart of your children and to be the best parent you can. 

Proper parenting helps you create a vision for you and your family and even helps you to deal with difficult times. When your family is experiencing a difficult situation, your ideas and plans are what they need most. 

You can as well discuss your goals and actually form a plan with your family. Whenever there is a misunderstanding, try to talk things through with your family. Talk it out and agree on a specific plan so as to strengthen your family’s relationship. Below are some necessary parenting activities you need in order to be the best parent for your family.

Always stay positive

Dig out ways to encourage yourself and your family’s positivity, because this may help them to stay positive and act accordingly. Do not only focus on the bad situations that are happening in your family, but always stay positive and think of the good things that have yielded from being with your family.

Always communicate with your family

Learn to communicate with your family. This would boost the love in the family and the cheerfulness. There are situations where parents would have used better communication but didn’t. So always ensure that you communicate with your family with an open heart, ears, and mind.

Give directions lovingly

Sometimes parents give their children directions that may seem a little bit rash and difficult. And as a result of this, your child may not follow this direction. Do not be harsh whenever you give directions, they may not understand what you are talking about, so let them know to help them to see things in your perspective and everything would go fine.

Apply discipline

Discipline is very important while parenting. It might be tough while responding to children, because they appear to be stubborn or annoying, so use loving discipline and teach them the correct standards. 

Kids get frustrated when they are not sure of what to do or how to go about doing something. So always see the need to set aside time for the family. Kids are creative, so always set time for your kids and take some time to enjoy playing with them.

There are many activities you can carry out when parenting, but these few ones mentioned earlier can go a long way to help your family and help your way of parenting. Try hard to keep these things in mind and you will make a good family.

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What You Should Know About Emotional Maturity and Parenting Styles

Parenting is a task that is highly underrated in terms of difficulty and maturity levels. If being a parent was a job, most parents would be underpaid because nobody would be able to pay for the problems you have to deal with.

Remember being young and wanting to have your own kids? How you envisaged the whole thing, I bet you even mapped out a plan on how you would raise your kids. Things are quite different now, aren’t they?

Kids are lovely creatures, at the same time, they could be a major source of worry for parents. You have to worry about their health, their attitudes, their growth, as a matter of fact, you worry about them more than you get to think about yourself.

In dealing with these kids and the issues that they face, you would need a good level of emotional maturity or you would end up getting things wrong and getting yourself misunderstood.

What is Emotional Maturity?

Emotional maturity simply means your ability to guide and have a good level of control over your emotions. How do you respond when you’re anxious, what do you say when you’re sad, what do you do when you’re angry? Do you appropriately think about your actions before you display them?

Considering the above questions, if all of your answers directly relate with good control, then you can say you are emotionally mature, otherwise, you might need to work on that.

Emotional maturity is what helps you ensure that you give the appropriate reaction to the actions of your children. So many parents probably don’t even know that their emotional maturity is what determines what parenting style they use.

What is Your Parenting Style?

As mentioned earlier, most parents don’t actually sit down to decide what their parenting style would be, as a matter of fact, there is no assurance that choosing a particular parenting style would work for you. The simple reason for that is, our emotions usually always come to play in our decision making and taking strict guidelines for training your kids may not be easy.

Nonetheless, here are some parenting styles that you may already be using without even knowing.

Authoritative: This is an authoritative parent is one who sets down rules for the kids, makes the kids aware of what the rules are, gives them some freedom of expression, and also enforces the rules, making sure that adequate punishment is meted on defaulters.

Authoritarian: This style of parenting leaves only very little freedom for the child with very strict rules which aren’t even properly explained to the kids. This kind of parent expects the child to know what is right or wrong from the punishment they previously received. They also expect so much from the child.

Permissive: Some parents may decide to use this method sometimes for their children when they want to study the behavior of the child. A permissive parent gives the child so much freedom and little strictness. The kids are able to completely express themselves even to their parents and peers.

Uninvolved: This parent has little to no time for parenting. They don’t care about the behavior of their kids and they don’t care how their actions affect the children. The children are allowed total freedom to do whatever they want. No form of discipline is involved, nothing.

It is important to know that your emotional maturity would help you with any parenting style you choose or are already using. The ideal parent is one that has control over their actions, especially when interacting with their kids.

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Does Parenting Affect Mental Health?

Being a parent has to be the most hectic long term job to do. Seeing these little beautiful kids grow from infants to adults, all the love, all the sweet times, and all of that has a positive effect on mental health, but the bad times may also make their mark.

It is not all rosy, because raising kids can be really big trouble sometimes. Living with somebody who doesn’t have the level of understanding that you have and trying to ensure that they grow up to be great is a task that should require a big salary. However, we are parents for the love of our kids.

A lot of parents do their best for their children, but not all of them have the knowledge and skills to raise a child in the way that his or her mental orientation isn’t affected. Parenting styles are different, and these styles may either make or mar a child in the long run.

What Parenting Styles are There, and How Does Parenting Affect Mental Health?

Your parenting style has to do with the ways you raise your child. Different parents have different styles, and most often times it is not because they chose the style they want, it is usually a reflection of their own personality.

Here are the four major parenting styles. It is possible that a parent combines one or more of these styles.

4 Common Parenting Styles

Authoritarian parenting: You know you’re an authoritarian parent if you train your kids with specific rules and ensure that they follow these rules to the letter. In situations where the rules are not properly attended, punishments follow.

Authoritarian parents usually don’t give so much room for the children to express their emotions, as the communication is usually one-sided. The child has little freedom and flexibility and is expected to do exceptionally great.

Now, different kids have different mental receptiveness; some may grow up okay and strong, and others may develop several social and mental disorders if this style is overbearing.

Uninvolved parenting: Unlike the authoritarian, uninvolved parenting affords the children way too much freedom to do whatever they want. Some parents do this deliberately to study what their kids would do if they had total freedom; others do this because they don’t even know what to do.

Uninvolved parents mostly don’t care what their kids do. They are not bothered and they don’t train the kids, they just let them live whichever way they want. This might result in serious social issues.

Authoritative parenting: This is a more educated and self-aware authoritarian parent. They set their rules, let the kids know the laid down rules, and give their children an adequate chance to express themselves, while at the same time giving the appropriate punishments when rules are disobeyed.

Permissive parenting: This type of parent is a tiny percentage of authoritativeness and hugely uninvolved. With this style, there are no rules or regulations; however, there may be punishments once in a while. Sometimes the punishment may not be calculated well enough and kids may get punished for what they didn’t even do.

Choosing the appropriate parenting style would most definitely help your child grow into what they should become and not what you decide. Remember that in order to become the ideal parent you can choose a combination of one or more of these, as long as it is what works for you and your child.

And when it comes to mental health for parents, try all-natural nutritional supplements for mood health from Pure Encapsulations’ NeuroMood Pure Pak and BrainMD Serotonin Mood Support.