Parenting is one job that always has you on a learning curve! Here are some posts that I found to inform or inspire me as a parent over the last month.
1. When marketers take over parenting
The Corporate Baby Sitter shares a presentation (power point) from a marketing specialist “Youth marketing – A guide to understanding youth development phases by Dan Pankraz“. It is really worth reading the presentation to see how the marketers view our children. The post ends with a fabulous line:
Talk to your kids. Constantly. Because marketers do.
2. 7 Ways to Help Anxious Kids
Let’s Explore is a fabulous blog and in this post 7 Ways to Help Anxious Kids Amy gives great advice on how to help your child learn calming techniques and conquer new situations and experiences.
3. Hugs
Single Dad Brad is continuing to work through his Positive Discipline Tool Cards and this particluar post was on the card Hugs. I have personally found that hugs are a very powerful parenting tool. The card has the following information:
1) When your child is having a tantrum, try asking for a hug.
2) If your child says, “No”, say, “I need a hug” a second time.
3) If your child says no again, say “I need a hug. Come find me when you are ready”, and then walk away. You might be surprised at what happens.
4. Choosing Our Responses
In this reflective post, Sarah from Little Billies talks about how we have a choice as to the way we parent:
In every single one of these situations we have a choice. How are you going to respond? I know that I want to CHOOSE to be positive, I want to CHOOSE to show love and kindness and in the really yucky situations that are out of my control I want to CHOOSE to overcome.
5. How to Increase Higher Order Thinking
From Reading Rockets, this is quite a lengthy post, but well worth the read. In an era where it seems that we are increasingly “teaching to the test”, this well written piece provides parents with tips on how to increase higher order thinking in our children.
Higher order thinking (HOT) is thinking on a level that is higher than memorizing facts or telling something back to someone exactly the way it was told to you. HOT takes thinking to higher levels than restating the facts and requires students to do something with the facts — understand them, infer from them, connect them to other facts and concepts, categorize them, manipulate them, put them together in new or novel ways, and apply them as we seek new solutions to new problems.
6. Oscar-Nominated Flicks for Families
Common Sense Media provide comprehensive reviews of family friendly movies that are nominated for the Oscars this year. Each review includes a review from Common Sense Media, parents reviews, kids reviews and age appropriate recommendations.
7. Advice for a Teenage Daughter I Will Never Have
In this post on Notes to Self, Kyran who is the mother to 3 boys, writes down the advice she would give to a daughter. It is beautifully written, with lovely touches of humour:
Every year you can possibly delay having sex will ultimately make sex that much better. Think of it as the difference between spending every allowance on cheap shoes that don’t last, or saving up for some really fabulous Jimmy Choos. Not that you have to go without even touching a pair of shoes in the meantime. Or marry your first pair of Jimmy Choos. Don’t tell your mom I said that.
8. A Letter of Thanks to My Teenage Son for Teaching Me Perspective in Childrearing
From the Parenting Squad blog, Michelle Hogan (mother of 7!!!) shares her learning from a turbulent time with her eldest child as he went through his teens.
I tried putting my foot down; grounding; screaming; counselors and even considered a teen boot camp. But you my dear Matthew were not a spoiled child who thought he was entitled to everything. You never cared about the cable TV or the Internet access. You never once asked me for a cell phone. You just wanted to be free. To do what you wanted.
9. How kids fool their parents
From the Family Anatomy blog, Dr Brian MacDonald looks at some current research on lying in children aged 11 – 13.
These findings, which have been duplicated in other studies, should be alarming for parents – by the time a child is 11 years old, the parents’ odds of detecting their fibs are only about 50-50! In other words, half the time you try to catch a child in a lie, you’ll be wrong.
10. After-school Parenting
Sue Scheff highlights a new trend in American parenting called split-shift parenting: Both parents work, but in a way that allows for one of them to be at home when the children come home from school. Research shows that this is a critical time for parent/s to be around:
The After School Alliance finds that over 15 million kids have no supervision after school. And studies show that the highest levels of juvenile crime occur in the afternoon and early evening when there are no adults around.
Have you read any inspiring or informative parenting posts lately?