Hold your horses, not too fast and no violence involved. Many people are pissed at the way things are handled in court, much so that convicted killers, scammers and everybody in between go unpunished because of the legalities involved. Now let me ask you this, do you want to take them on with the backing of the law that so protects them, and gain the same protection for your and your family? Have you ever considered taking online law degrees with the many colleges offering them today, it’s easy as pie and you can do it while keeping your job during the day. many major colleges are now offering online law courses for those who want career advancement. For us, it would be the pure pleasure of learning hoe these criminals get away with the things they do.
Many of us are just plain tired and say that let them do the job for you, but most of the times, you’re not contented with the way they handle things. The law is a very tedious and tender matter that anybody without insight can easily get swallowed by the many such technicalities that are part of these laws. They are however the foundation of our society so whatever is within these laws makes modern life possible. Get down and dirty and get involved by getting yourself knowledgeable in the law that has failed you so much. Get involved and turn the law onto your side and keep the guilty ones out of the streets making them safer for our families, friends and everybody else.
Our furry friends have been known to lower stress of parenting and childhood for they offer companionship without question even if they do get around to mischief from time to time. Raising kids can be quite hectic specially in today’s recession wrecked economy but having them take care of a pet can be a nice way to teach them some responsibility. They do entail some costs for care and veterinary services to ensure they are fit and well but take my word for it, they’re well worth the cost so knowing the breed through updated dog information is essential for both your sakes.
You can also try animal shelters and animal charities for some pets that have had it rough and need loving families. May you be a pet lover or not, dogs and all other pets deserve care for they are our responsibility. Dogs are more energetic than cats and may even contribute to the health of your family as you have to take them for walks, call it a symbiotic existence where both benefit from living together.
Parents and kids alike will benefit for with the kids, they get to get a taste of responsibility and compassion for animals. For us adults, they become a sort of multi-tasking ward, guarding our homes, watching over the kids and what can we say, it’s just fun to talk and pour out stress without having the other party answer back!!!
Forgive me for neglecting this blog all week, it’s been a busier week than usual – I’ve attempted to do a “clean sweep“. But for once, it has nothing to do with cleaning or organizing my house or my kids, and has everything to do with me.
It all started with an email I received from my mothers group a few weeks ago from a fellow Mum who excitedly said she was organizing a “Life Planning” workshop. Now, I’ve always been interested in that kind of thing (having lined my shelved with too many “self-help” books in my twenties, then moved onto the “baby whisperer” and “how to raise a spirited child”), and coupled with our family’s latest dilemma of moving, it really should have been something I signed up for immediately. But no, it stayed in my inbox for weeks, until the (rightly) persistent Mum, sent a follow up email saying:
The workshops are designed to be a time set aside for some internal reflection – but nothing too deep or scary! So many of us spend most of our time worrying about the well-being of others (husbands, kids, friends, far-off family, the cat) that we tend to neglect ourselves. In these workshops we want to take stock of our lives, where we are and where we want to go. It is not about searching through our past or re-living our personal histories. It is all about finding out who I really want to be and how I can become that person.
I’m sorry if this all sounds too California-hippy-esoteric: the tone of the workshops will actually be very down-to-earth and practical (and hopefully fun!).
I had this nagging feeling that it was something I should do, but I let a few more days pass, asking my husband occasionally, “What do you think? Should I do it?” After he said, for the upteenth time, “YES! just do it already”, I emailed the Mum and said that I was interested and quickly hit the “send” button before I could change my mind. In a few minutes I got a reply saying that I was luckily the 10th and last participant!
So I was in. And with trepidation I went to the first session last Tuesday, which consisted of 10 women, all from pretty different backgrounds and nationalities, with one thing in common. In the flurry of our lives as Mom, wife, friend, daughter, employee, employer etc…., we all wanted the same thing – to be happier with ourselves and create a better life for ourselves and our families. Our facilitator Michel was a Life Coach, and together with his assistant, also a Life Coach (and retired Congresswoman!), went through the first part of the workshop which was about Life Mapping.
I have to say that it was a great experience – certainly NOT easy, but with the potential to be extremely rewarding. This week I’ve been struggling to find the time (and head space) to fill out some of the exercises they gave us, which I’ve found is like eating a very healthy (but tasteless meal). Its not very comfortable chewing on those weird grains, but you know its good for you and you’ll feel a lot better later.
Photo via chez_sugi
Gymboree
So we arrived at Gymboree, all ready for his trial class in “Level 2: Play and Learn”, which was for babies aged from 6-10 months. We entered the play floor and he looked around curiously at all the bright colors and babies around, the happy “Gymboree” music playing in the background.
For the first few minutes he was shy, not wanting to leave my lap, holding on quite tightly. But as the teacher eased into the 2nd song (they use the old standards – like “itsy bitsy”, “this old man” etc etc and put their own lyrics), he was off my lap, crawling to Gymbo the clown on the teacher’s lap, checking out the other babies and Moms by grabbing their shirt, watch, feet (oh dear).
The 45 minute class flew by – he crawled up a padded incline and was the first baby to grab the ball the the top (beating the 9-month-olds I proudly note), walked on a wooden plank then slid down on a wooly rug, played some singing games on my lap (he preferred crawling though), sang and danced (a good workout for Mum), and watched the bubbles with utter amazement – and it wasn’t until the last minute just as the goodbye song was ending did he start fussing with a few whines which signaled “ok Mummy, I’m tired now”.
The verdict? A good class for crawling babies, can be a bit rushed (as in moving from one activity to the next fairly quickly) for others especially those who aren’t very mobile yet.
It is that time of the year again – when children go back to school. For some it is coming back. It is a familiar experience. Something that they look forward to. For others, it is a totally new experience. There is the element of fear as well as anticipation. For the parents, the supporting role has never been more important. This is especially true for those parents who have kids who are going to school for the first time.
I still remember my first day in primary school. My mother worked as a teacher in the same school I went to. Still, it took two teacher helpers and the teacher herself to pry me away from my mother’s arms. And I was bawling like a baby.
How can we help our kids when they first go to school? The best thing to do would be to make school familiar to them. They are going away to a strange environment and will be out of their comfort zone. Even before they actually have to go to school, there are some things that we can do to help them.
One thing that you can do is to pass by the school often and point it out to your child. Tell him good stories about school and prepare him for the day that he would actually have to go there. Build it up and encourage him. More so, tell him about your own positive experiences in school. Tell him how exciting it is and how he is going to learn a lot of things and make new friends. Try it – it has worked for me.
But how about you, how do you think you can prepare your child for school?
I love how urban legends sometimes (or oftentimes) believed to be true. In this day and age when information circulates so fast, we may not have the time to check the veracity of some stories. I ran across a post by asflutz on Strollerderby which highlights the top 10 urban legends regarding children. It is quite an amusing read, to say the least.
Here are some of my favorites – to be honest, I thought these to be true at one point. (Yeah, I can be very gullible.)
Pokemon episode gave Japanese kids seizures.
True, but only a “handful.” Although over 600 Japanese kids were reportedly rushed to the hospital with epileptic seizures induced from watching a particular 1997 Pokemon episode, only a few were actually diagnosed with photosensitive epilepsy. But even if you’re one of those over-protective parents who think a few seizures from watching TV is a few seizures too many, Americans have nothing to worry about. According to Snopes, the offending scenes were removed from the episode, which anyway was never translated into English and will never air on American TV.
Fake “tattoos” and stamps for kids are laced with LSD.
False. Although parents today are just as afraid as our parents were about kids falling under the prey of drug dealers, this famous tale from the 1970s has yet to be supplanted by a more modern version.
Drug dealers smuggle cocaine into the U.S. stuffed into the bodies of dead babies.
False. This gruesome story has been around for more than 20 years, and has been reported as fact in respected publications such as The Washington Post and The New Republic, but there is no record of this ever having occurred. Versions keep popping up with each shift in the war on drugs, with dead children allegedly being used to smuggle narcotics into the Middle East or over the Mexican-American border.
Come on, don’t tell me you didn’t fall for at least one of these! Got any urban legends you want to share?
Earth Day is a couple of days away and most everyone is looking for ways to give back to nature. Though I see this flurry of activities in a positive light, I believe that “going green” is something that we have to pay attention to in every day of our lives. Being conscious of the environment and how our actions affect it is not a one time big time thing. It is something that we impart to our children right from the outset. It is learned throughout their childhood and carried on to their adulthood.
I distinctly remember my parents teaching us little practices by which we could be environmentally conscious. For example, when we eat candy while we are in the playground and we cannot see a trash can nearby, we were taught to put the wrapper in our pockets instead of throwing it on the ground.
My parents set good examples as well. One picture that I cannot erase from my memory is our family in a car on the highway. We were eating some chips and we were done, we dutifully placed all the trash in a bag – to be disposed of later. There was this really nice car in front of us. In a little while we discovered what they were having for snacks – corn cobs flew out of the window. Soda cans followed.
That image has been imprinted permanently in my mind – bringing up kids to realize how they can help the environment out does not have to be a very big deal. We do not have to buy all organic food. We do not have to buy certain labels at the grocery store all the time. Teaching our kids the little things that they can do everyday – like the illustration I shared above – is more lasting and more important in my mind.
How do you teach your kids the value of the environment?
I have always believed that mental skills depend both on genetics and parenting. A recent article published on CBS News provides proof for the latter. It talks about a study conducted at the University of Oregon which focused on poor families. Here’s an excerpt from the news article:
They looked at measures of thinking skills in young children before and after parents had special counseling.
One of the researchers, Courtney Stevens, PhD, presented early results from the study today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston.
Fourteen children aged 3-5 were tested on language ability and attention, and they had brain scans before their parents began the counseling. Another 14 children had the same tests, but their parents did not receive any special counseling.
The findings of the study?
Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, PhD, co-director of the Institute for Child and Family Policy at Columbia University in New York City, says the most helpful ways to even the odds for poor kids are preschool education and efforts to improve parenting practices. She says the policy institute she leads has “very specific recommendations on parenting practices,” which agree with what the Oregon researchers taught.
Though many of us probably know the importance of good parenting with regard to our children’s mental skills, it is still assuring to hear of scientific findings such as this one. I guess we don’t need any more motivation to practice good parenting, huh? What do you think?
If there is one thing that I will treasure most from my childhood, it is the fact that my parents always took the time to read books to me – always. Our situation may have been a bit extraordinary as we grew up without a television at home so we ended up loving books with a passion. Still, I believe it was our parents’ initiative that nurtured that love of reading which has undoubtedly contributed much to our formative years.
Now that I am in my mother’s place, I recognize the importance of reading to children, no matter how old they are. From infanthood till the time your child learns to read, reading to them everyday is important. Simple stories, picture books, and the like – these are vital in the development of your child.
Once he learns to read on his own, should we still read to him? I think that it shouldn’t stop just because he can do it by himself. Bedtime stories are one of the things that your child will remember when he grows up. More than an intellectual activity, this is also a perfect way to bond with your child. It is one way of showing him that he is important and a priority for you. I still remember slowly drifting away to Neverland with the soothing voice of my mom or my dad in the background – a perfect way to sink into the thralls of night of peaceful sleep!
So, do you read to your children? Do you spend enough time doing this?
“Where do babies come from?”
Ah, the dreaded talk. It’s the moment that parents don’t really look forward to. And sometimes it’s the moment that kids (especially those old enough to understand) don’t really want to go through. But then when is the right time to have “the talk” and what is the most appropriate way to go with it?
This is especially true with conservative societies. Some people would rather sweep things under the rug, escaping responsibility because talking about it might be considered taboo.
To the contrary, the topic of sex should not be something hidden behind an iron curtain. As parents, we should understand that humans are sexual beings at–and even before–birth. We were made to be male and female, and there should be no malice with how we discuss these matters with our kids. Reproduction, after all, is a God-given gift. These things should be handled with openness, and yet with sensitivity.
So do away with the “birds and the bees” or the “Mr. Pelican” talk. It’s time kids learn about the truth.
It’s important for parents to be there to guide kids about matters about sex. Children today can be overwhelmed by inputs from the media and from their peers. For all you know, they could be getting the wrong ideas and false information about sex. These could lead to dangerous situations later on (such as unreported sexual abuse, teenage pregnancies, and the like). It’s best for kids to be aware of themselves and their sexuality so that this could not be exploited by other people.
The Mayo Clinic has a great introductory article about having “the talk” with your children. It involves dealing with human sexuality at various stages in a child’s life. This is probably a good reference when you feel the time has come for that talk.
Incidentally, this will be my last post here on the Parenting blog for a long time. Lara has come back from taking care of the Pirates stuff. I will perhaps post here from time to time, though. And of course, I’ll still be around as your host at several other Splashpress blogs like the Blog Herald, Jack of All Blogs, Gadzooki.
