Parenting | The Family Channel

Addiction as a Vice for Mothers

Simply put, being a mother is one of the hardest jobs in the world. As a mom, you definitely have your own struggles, many of which your family is completely oblivious to, and blissfully so. There are things that moms want to do, places they want to see, goals they want to achieve and dreams they to achieve. For some parents, this internal pressure is difficult to handle. Sometimes mothers lose track of themselves somewhere along the way. You may just be desperate for some unwinding time or incapable of realizing your priorities.

Unfortunately, a stressed out mother is not immune to the effects of drugs. You may have become dependent on alcohol or on an illegal or prescription drug as a coping mechanism. It is definitely times like these where we need to be able to realize our responsibilities as mothers so that we will be able to take control of ourselves, our bodies and our lives once more. Mothers definitely have it rough, but that does not have to mean that addiction to drugs is the only answer. There are definitely options out there for getting help, and getting clean once and for all.

If you are struggling with an addiction, or if you know someone who is struggling with an addition, especially someone with children, then it becomes your responsibility to do anything and everything that you can in order to support that person. One of the best things you can do to help that friend is to help arrange a relaxing getaway that will allow her to re-analyze her priorities and get clean so that addiction is a thing of the past. The right rehabilitation facilities, such as MichaelsHouse.com for example, can provide this level of support and care so that the afflicted individual can finally overcome the addiction and move on with life.

Filed Under: Family, Parenting Tagged With: Prescription drug

Making Date Night Possible

Once the little kiddies come along it comes harder for most couples to keep the romance going. Not that they don’t want to be romantic, just that it’s hard to be romantic with kiddies constantly interrupting. With all the costs of a family, it’s hard for most couples to have the necessary extra cash to be able to spend on themselves.

So, what every couple needs is a way to get away from the kids, so they can have some time for themselves, without having to spend a fortune to have that time. In case you haven’t checked recently, baby sitters have gotten really expensive. So any date a couple tries to go on has an instant additional cost of anywhere from $10.00 to $20.00 per hour. Whatever happened to the $3.00 per hour baby sitter?

Every problem has a solution, and this one has to have one too. If the cost of paying the babysitter is what’s destroying the possibility of having some time together, get rid of the babysitter. No, I’m not suggesting leaving the baby at home alone. Nor am I suggesting leaving it with relatives (the most common alternative to hiring a baby sitter). What I’m trying to suggest is a way of having someone watch your kids, without it costing you.

How many other couples do you know with children about the same age as yours? If you’re like most couples, most of your friends fall into that category. Okay, how many of those couples have the same problem in getting away as you do? Not sure of the answer, let me give it to you; all of them.

All you have to do is find another couple that wants a change to have a date night as much as you do. Make a deal with them to have a date night once a week (preferably the same night). One week, you watch their kids, so they can go out; the next week, they watch your kids so you can go out. That way, each couple has one night every two weeks that’s just for them.

Filed Under: Child Development, Parenting Tagged With: Babysitting, Children

Listening Skills

There is no magic recipe in becoming a parent. It is an occurrence of nature, and it is how the species has survived. However, in order to raise children, and to truly parent them through life, there are some skills that successful parents possess. All people can develop these skills, and they are not difficult, but they do require discipline and effort to always maintain the focus.

Some of the best skills possessed by successful parents are that of listening. Time and time again children say, “You aren’t listening to me.” This is a really big aspect of a parent child relationship, and one that takes practice. The reason this is so difficult for many people to fully grasp is because we are trained that the person with the quickest response must be the most prepared in the situation. This is partly true, and partly untrue. When listening to your children, you want to have the right answers; however, you do really want to fully listen to your children. This means that waiting until your child is done explaining something before you begin to formulate a response. Child and family therapists all say that it is best when you can repeat what the other person has said before stating your position. This does a couple of things for your child. It allows them to feel that you have listened, and understood what it is that your child is saying to you; especially if you are able to repeat what was said. This is a good exercise to help build trust in your communication and to build an approachability factor between you and your child. There is not better time than to start now, so that in years to come you can have an already established listening pattern, and when big issues arise, you will be prepared to confront the issue.

Filed Under: Child Development, Parenting Tagged With: Child, Parent

How To Go Out With Peace Of Mind

One of the biggest fears of a parent, is that when they go out and leave their children with a babysitter, is the threat of an emergency. Chances are the babysitter is a teenager, and the thought of that person being able to handle a true emergency is an unsettling thought. So, what are parents supposed to do so that they can leave the kids at home for an evening, and be able to enjoy themselves while they are away? Try to have some trial runs with the experience of leaving your children. This will help to put your mind at ease. The other thing you can do is to make sure that all the emergency numbers are available just in case. Another idea is to have a pre-paid cell phone this is only to be used by the babysitter to call you if there is a need that arises. With this, you can also structure check in times. This will help alleviate a lot of anxiety in the beginning.

If this is not your first time leaving your child with a babysitter, but you can never seem to have peace of mind, try having your babysitter watch your children at their home with their parents present. This will give you peace of mind that there are adults around, and if the worst were to happen, then you know they could assist if needed. Some people even have their babysitters attend a friends home. The babysitter would be paid to watch both sets of children, your and your friends, and your friends would have an in-house date night, while you go out. This way you are confident that there is assistance if your babysitter needed it. One of the best ways, though, to make sure that your babysitter is ready for the challenges that come with babysitting, is by obtaining an American Red Cross Babysitters card.

Filed Under: Child Development, Parenting Tagged With: Babysitting, Child

Bath Time For Mommy

So it has been a long day with the kids, and you are tired. All you want to do is go to bed, or read a book. However, you still have to make dinner, help with the homework, and get clothes out for school tomorrow. Is there any relief? Remember the old commercials, “Calgon, take me away!” If you are reading that and thinking, “if only…” then you need to take a bath and take a load off. One of the best ways to relieve stress is by soaking in a tub and closing out the world. If you have the necessary tools, a tub, bubble bath, and someone to watch the kids for an hour or so, then you have the ingredients for a low cost stress relief session that will make your day and stress that went with it melt away.

Try this on for size, play your favorite relaxing music, light candles, and get the bubbles ready. Think about taking in your favorite book, and plan on settling in for an hour of uninterrupted Mommy time that is well deserved. There is one thing you that you will have to have taken care of before you get started, however, tell whoever is watching the kids that you are to not be disturbed. It is almost more stressful to be interrupted during a relaxing time because you are frustrated that you were not able to finish your alone time.

Filed Under: General, Parenting Tagged With: Bubble bath, Calgon

Making Games With Your Child

Making games with your child is a fun and easy way to bond and to help them learn. For instance, making a treasure map can be highly engaging, and highly educational. Even if yourchild is very young, it is something that is easily understood, and can be a fun time for both parent and child. You can even make board games, and make the pieces out of Play-Do. There is no end to the fun that you can have with this activity. Some of the learned items that a child begins to grasp with this type of activity is cause and effect, how thing relate to each other, and planning in advance. Like that with a treasure, a child will have to devise a plan to hide the treasure, remember where it is, and come up with a way to explain how to get to it. Then, he or she needs to illustrate all of this into a map so that you can follow it to the treasure. This is an extremely fun way to help your child learn some complicated life skills.

Games are fun way of learning, and when a child is able to assist in the creation of a game, he or she can identify and follow more closely along with the spirit of the game. This means that your child will have a tendency to be more engaged that if this were a suggestion by a parent. It also means that you will need to be creative in the planning or your child will lose their focus at some point. If this project is made to be too complicated, you could potentially lose your childs focus altogether. The more simplified the better. Focus on the fun factor and think about the learning factor later, because there are life lessons in nearly everything we do.

Filed Under: Child Development, Parenting Tagged With: Board game, Learning

The Babysitter Ate All The Food

Finding a good babysitter can be a hard task for some families. Especially if you do not have any good referrals, or all the good babysitters are working. There are things that you know would be good for your child, like someone who likes to play games, engage during a video, or help clean up toys. Then there are other qualities that you do not want, like a babysitter that talks on the phone the whole time, eats all of your food, and gets frustrated quickly with the kids. Have the latter as a babysitter is almost every parents worst nightmare. It is important that you have someone you can trust while you are away.

There are some thing that you can do to make sure that this does not happen. For instance, for the first time or two, come home early. Pay the babysitter the normal rate, but have him or her go home early. This will allow you to surprise your babysitter and you will be able to see things and how they were with your children without an effort to cover things up. Also, make sure your babysitter knows the rules that you have for your home, and what he or she is allowed to do. For example, if you do not want your babysitter to eat all of your food, but you have certain things that they can have, point that out. By letting them know the boundaries, you will feel more confident. The other thing that you can do is ask that your babysitter check in with you every so often. Until you get to really know your new babysitter, this is a good way to keep things in balance while you are away. This also gives you peace of mind, and if the babysitter complies and calls on time, you will feel much better about the situation.

Filed Under: Child Development, Parenting Tagged With: Babysitting, Parent

Postpartum Depression and You

Postpartum depression can be a sign of other problems that you might be having right now. And in the same vein, it can also be working in concert with other problems that you might be having, as well. It is extremely rare that any problem in life will exist solely on its own, after all. And postpartum depression is no different. Fortunately, there are places where you can go, in order to get help. If you do not get help, you just never know how bad the situation might become for you. This is not the kind of thing that you can simply brush off, or pretend that it does not exist. It will continue to get worse, and it may ultimately consume you, if you do not strike back, and take back your own life.

Postpartum depression is a lot like every other type of depression. You tend to feel worthless, useless, and like nothing could possibly get any better. You also tend to feel as if there is no point to anything. Basically, depression is a state of intense fatalism, and that fatalism can lead to alcoholism. After all, if everything is just going to be bad, you might as well have a few drinks in order to dull the pain. But no amount of liquor is going to make the pain go away, and at some level you realize this.

Another problem you are going to eventually have to deal with is that you may have other, underlying problems that you might not even be admitting to yourself. Of course, lying to yourself means that you are going to lie to everyone else. At places like the Canyon (which you can find at TheCyn.com), they can help you to get through your problems. But they can only help you if you are going to be willing to be honest. You will need to be brutally honest, both with them and with yourself.

Filed Under: Child Development, Parenting Tagged With: Depression, Disorders, Health, Mental health, Mood, Postpartum depression, Pregnancy and Birth, Reproductive Health

The Pros And Cons Of Spanking

Spanking is a highly controversial issue amongst many American homes. In fact, the issue of spanking has even gone to the Supreme Court based on child abuse clauses in certain states. So what is the issue truly about? For some, they believe that spanking is a physically abusive punishment. They believe that no person has the right to lay a hand on a child regardless of the reason or of the person. The idea is that if you want to correct your child, spanking is not the way to do it.

The flip side to this argument is that spanking is merely a way to get a child’s attention. That anything can be abusive when taken too far, and the intention and motive behind spanking is not abusive. The proponents of spanking have said that for a child that is too young to reason, that it is better to have a physical consequence that will begin to train their children to be more disciplined.

Regardless of the philosophy, many parents offer different styles of consequences to their children. The key point with all of it is that whatever the punishment is, it should be done in love, with a corrective objective. This means that if a child is biting another child, it is important to correct that behavior in a way so that the child knows that biting is wrong. Some view spanking at this time to be beneficial because it provides a physical reminder of why biting is not good to do. Others would disagree saying that it is not good to teach a child to not bite by spanking them. The key is to have efficacy in the punishment, without being abusive. Abuse is not just physical however, and sometimes the scolding that children get, can be just as bad as spanking gone awry.

Filed Under: Child Development, Parenting Tagged With: Child abuse, Spanking

Different Parenting Styles

There are different parenting styles that families use in order to raise their children. Just like there are different personalities in a home, each parent might exhibit a different style in which to handle the task of raising their child. Some parents are very strict, have a strong disciplinarian side to them. Which means that children are expected to behave in a certain way, and if they do not, then there are swift and immediate consequences that will follow. Another type of parenting style is the type that believes in allows a child to develop at his or her own pace, and allowing them to discover life’s good and bad. Many parents feel that this will help children grow into more independent people, and that experiencing life while in the home is a good way for a child to make mistakes, but still be protected.

Both styles have positives and negatives, but it is only truly beneficial if both parents share the style, or the philosophy. For instance, if one parent yells a lot, or is the strong disciplinarian, and the other is much more relaxed, or has a tendency to undermine the other parent, this can create a glitch. The reason the conflict of styles is so detrimental to children is because children will learn how to work that mis-match to their own advantage. Parents could find that they are being manipulated by the child or children, and that the effort in having a strong raising base for the children has crumbled. It is best if both parents can be unified on their child rearing approach, because whatever the style may be, it is best if it is applied by both parents. This will allow your child to have a consistent and conducive raising without attempts at finding flaws for their own gain.

Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: Parent, Parenting styles