Best Parents

Did you know that from 3 months to about 2 1/2 years old your baby can actually tell the difference between 94 and 95? While your baby is born not recognizing our numerical representation of quantity, your baby can automatically perceive quantity without counting or guessing.

Math is just another language. Categorized like a language math is made up of only 10 words: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0.

However, children taught numbers, but never exposed to quantity find it impossible to do instant math. Instead, they rely on memorization of actual equations (ex. 7 x 2 = 14; 7 x 3 = 21) to come up with the correct answer. This differs from instant math because once you forget a fact you have to start all over again. And even if you do remember all of your times tables, what happens when you reach numbers about 12?

First you need to cover How to Teach Baby Math – Quantity Recognition, Quantity Equations, and Quantity Problem Solving (find the link below). That could be considered part one on How to Teach Baby Math.

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Kayleen is serving tea and muffins to Oscar the Grouch while sporting a faded felt snowman hat. Not too far away, C.J. is holding a baby doll and gently taking her temperature with a big plastic thermometer. What do these two year olds have in common? They’re both engaging in the time-less activity of ‘make-believe’ play.

Through make-believe, young children learn about themselves and the world around them. Little babies playing pat-a-cake are making believe. Depending on the age of the child, their role playing games will vary. Imaginative children don’t need fancy toys or equipment to pretend; they’re happy with a box and a toilet tissue roll. When they engage in pretend play with a variety of objects, they’re learning life skills that will help them as adults.

We’ve all watched little kids playing dress-up or ‘house.’ Children can create an imaginary world anywhere – when molding clay animals, when helping mom or dad match-up socks (sock puppets are the best after all.) If they’re this creative with just a sock, then think what they can do with special make-believe props. 

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Reading is such an important life skill that it is important to do everything that you can to help your children become the best readers they can be. To encourage your child’s reading habits, it is pertinent that you not only give them the skills to succeed at reading, but give them the tools that make them enjoy it as well. If you can get your children to love reading at an early age, you will turn them into life long readers and studies show that kids that love reading tend to do better in school, which helps them to prepare for whatever life throws at them.

There are several ways to help your children in their quest for reading knowledge. There are many good programs, books, and even games on the market that help children learn the basics of reading fundamentals. With the market so saturated with different reading and phonics programs, parents often overlook a rather simple and fun way to get their kids excited about reading. Magazines are a great resource to use when you are trying to develop a love of learning in your children.

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One of the most frustrating parts of parenting are having to deal with temper tantrums. Toddlers can really test their parents sanity once a child gets to be approximately 18 months of age until turning 3-4 years of age. One of the most common reasons children throw temper tantrums is because a child can’t do or have something he or she wants. Unfortunately, the biggest mistake parents make is to give a child an item or allow a child to do an activity after having said "No" and the child throws a fit. The child just learned that throwing a temper tantrum got the child what he or she wanted.

It can be very difficult as a parent not to give in to your child when he or she is behaving terribly and you just want it to stop. However, this sort of behavior can only get worse and when the child is a teenager, he or she will increase the severity and intensity of the behavior to the point where you either give in or deal with serious consequences.

At that point a little temper tantrum from a two-year-old will seem like a piece of cake. You’ll wish for just a temper tantrum at that point. It is much easier to follow through with a little 2-year-old than a much bigger and stronger 14-year-old that has had 12 years of learning what works to get what he or she wants. The first tip for preventing tantrums is to always make sure your child is getting proper sleep and eating every few hours as sleep deprivation and hunger can make tantrums more likely when saying no to a child.

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What happens to discipline when your child argues with you? Does the discipline become a battle? Learn 3 ways to model character and practice the winning formula for solving arguments. It’s time you get the respect you deserve.

The Discipline Problem: Endless Arguing between You and Your Kids:

Arguing with kids is like a spinning top. It keeps spinning until you give up, tip over, and say, "Yes" when you want to say, "No."

Kids push arguments to senseless heights. Be rational when they’re not, otherwise your discipline will fail. They’ll win. Why? Many kids argue louder and longer than their parents. If this is the way your kids get what they want, you can change it.

Let’s look at 3 discipline solutions for ending arguments and solving problems, but first let’s look into your past.

Did You Argue with Your Parents?

If so, did you win? Was it easier for them to give up than to keep arguing? Was arguing the way you got what you wanted? Do you remember telling your parents -

1. You always say, "No!"

2. You make me do everything!

3. It isn’t fair!

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Whether you have a boy or a girl, chances are there is plenty of athletic activities available right in your own community that caters to their age and skill level. Athletics and sports in general are a supportive part of growing up and help kids set the foundation for socialization, team work and a feeling of pride and accomplishment in themselves. The trick is to start them out with a non-competitive attitude and allow them to develop their own likes and dislikes for activities. Just because you dream of having a football or softball star, doesn’t mean your child will follow suit and pushing them in a direction they aren’t interested in (or good at) causes insecurity and pressure.

Too many parents become involved in their children’s sporting events as if it is a direction indication on their own ability. It’s as if they are reliving their own childhood or making up for something they didn’t do by sitting on the sidelines pressuring their child to do better or be the best. When you involve your kids in sports it is vital to be empathetic, patient and realize that they will come into and out of their athletic abilities on their own terms. There are plenty of kids who are intimidated by competition among peers who crumble in the face of a adversity. When they get the ball, are open for the shot, have a chance to kick the goal – they become paralyzed. Frustrating to watch, but parents should encourage confidence rather than game time success. By pushing too hard, parents will most certainly cause a negative feeling in their children about sports.

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By beginning at a young age to talk to your child about money you may improve their life-long money habits and understanding. Begin with asking your child a few questions to determine what they already know.

Where does money come from?

How does mom or dad earn money?

What are your needs?

What are your wants?

Depending on the age of your child, you may receive some very interesting answers to these questions. This begins your communication and clarification of what money is how it is earned and how we spend money. If they did not have clear answers to the above questions, have a conversation with them to discuss needs, wants and how money is earned.

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Using a car seat is the most important step in helping to secure the security of your kids in the car. But just owning a car seat is not enough in itself: the car seat needs to be used, and it has to be used properly. Here are  helpful steps to follow to help assure that your kids will be as secure as possible in their car seats.

1. Always be sure to  read and understand the manufacturer’s recommendations on how to use the car seat properly. Improper car seat usage is the main cause of car seat failure. Also completely read the owner’s manual for your car as it relates to the usage of car seats. Most car owner’s manuals have specific instructions for car seat installation and these instructions must always be adhered to.
2. To increase the security of your children, only put the car seat in the rear set of your vehicle, not in the front seat. Ideally, you should put the car set in the middle of the rear seat to increase protection against intrusion during side-impact collisions.
3. If your car seat can only be used in the front seat (if there is no back seat), only install it there if there is no front seat  airbag or if the airbag can be disabled. And then make sure that the airbag is indeed off. Never use a car seat in the front seat of a vehicle if the passenger-side airbag is enabled. continue reading…

The first set of teeth, or milk-teeth as they are called, are twenty in number; they usually appear in pairs, and those of the lower jaw generally precede the corresponding ones of the upper. The first of the milk-teeth is generally cut about the sixth or seventh month, and the last of the set at various periods from the twentieth to the thirtieth months. Thus the whole period occupied by the first dentition may be estimated at from a year and a half to two years. The process varies, however, in different individuals, both as to its whole duration, and as to the periods and order in which the teeth make their appearance. It is unnecessary, however, to add more upon this point.

Their developement is a natural process. It is too frequently, however, rendered a painful and difficult one, by errors in the management of the regimen and health of the infant, previously to the coming of the teeth, and during the process itself.

Thus, chiefly in consequence of injudicious management, it is made the most critical period of childhood. Not that I believe the extent of mortality fairly traceable to it, is by any means so great as has been stated; for it is rated as high as one sixth of all the children who undergo it. Still, no one doubts that first dentition is frequently a period of great danger to the infant. It therefore becomes a very important question to an anxious and affectionate mother, how the dangers and difficulties of teething can in any degree be diminished, or, if possible, altogether prevented. A few hints upon this subject, then, may be useful. I shall consider, first, the management of the infant, when teething is accomplished without difficulty; and, secondly, the management of the infant when it is attended with difficulty.

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By Chris J Thompson

Right from childhood, it is ingrained in us not to vent our anger, especially in public. However real the cause for anger, as children we were encouraged to avoid displaying it, or risk being chastised. Sometimes, as a parent now, you deal with your angry, hostile child by getting angry yourself. At times you may even apply unreasonable punishments because of your emotional state. You are responding to anger with anger, and then feeling guilty about it later. Normally an angry child is most likely to respond negatively if you deal with him sternly.

You have surely witnessed this. The moody toddler whose uncalled-for tantrums leave her hopeless parents scrambling to pacify her; the dominating preschooler who never discovered how to share toys or get acquainted with other children or strangers socially; the brooding teen who deems any request as the world war of wills; the bully whose rage and destructive behavior make him feared, friendless, and miserably alone. Many of these children have all the comforts they require. They live in caring, loving homes, yet for some baffling reason they feel and truly believe that most of the things that happen to them are simply unjust. They start their day angry, and can explode into an all-out rage over little setbacks or imagined offenses. These are children who are so full of rage that has no apparent or distinct cause.

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