Parenting

Is It Time For Your Daughter To Switch Doctors?

March 27, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

When your child hits her teen years, it is time to start considering her changing medical needs. If you daughter is still seeing the pediatrician she grew up with, it may be time to switch. As a girl begins puberty, both her physical and emotional needs transform. She may begin to have questions about her changing body that she wouldn’t be comfortable asking the same doctor that saw her for the banged up knees and chicken pox.

Talk to your daughter about switching to a new doctor who is familiar with treating girls her age. Find out if she would be more comfortable seeing a female—many young girls are. When it comes time for the appointment, see if she would like you to go back with her or stay in the waiting room. This is hard for many moms, but if your daughter has concerns that she is uncomfortable mentioning to you, at least she will receive honest feedback from a medical professional rather than being left with misconceptions.

Probably the hardest step of all is approaching the topic of birth control. While you may think there is no chance your daughter is even kissing boys, much less taking things further, birth control is certainly something to consider. If your daughter has particularly bad cramps, hormonal birth control can ease this for her. It can also help with heavy periods. This is something that you should discuss with the family doctor as well as your daughter. You can do this and still let it be known that you do not approve of any sexual contact at her age/until she is married/until she is fifty… whatever the case may be.

Filed Under: Advice, Parenting Tagged With: birthcontrol, Family medicine, Hormonal contraception

Drugs and Alcohol – How to Approach Your Teen

March 9, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Image by sillygwailo via Flickr

The teen years can be scary for parents—this is a time when peer pressure really kicks in. Friends get together and, no matter how “good” your kid is, often are talked into doing things they would typically never do. How can you help your teen say no to peer pressure? Lectures won’t work, yelling always backfires, and nagging will only urge your teen to rebel even more.

Talk to your teen on the level. Ask them what their friends are doing, but don’t be confrontational about it. Kids often find it easier to speak to their parents when they don’t have to be eye to eye. Bring up the conversation in the car, but be prepared to actually listen. If you interrupt—or even worse, blow up—then your teen is bound to shut up. That’s never a good thing. You want to keep the lines of communication open. Be prepared for his answers. Think before you respond.

If your teen’s friends are trying drugs or alcohol, talk to your child about it. Did he try it too? If not, has he considered it? What stopped him? If he has tried drugs or alcohol, a good approach is to go over your concerns in a neutral voice. If you freak out, he will too. State the reasons for your fear including the risk of health problems (or in severe cases, death). If your teen is into sports, bring up the fact that most schools have a no-tolerance policy. If he hasn’t tried the things his friends are doing, reinforce the fact that you are proud of his decisions.

Keep him talking and ask him to come to you if he is considering trying alcohol or drugs. Let him know that you will be there to speak frankly and calmly about the situations in his life, even if they concern matters that you don’t approve of. Some kids never try drugs or alcohol, but many do. Be ready to discuss your child’s choices openly and honestly.

Filed Under: Advice, Parenting Tagged With: Adolescence, Alcohol, Drug

Use the Internet to Save Time When Finding the Perfect Kid’s Costume

March 6, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Your child is in the school play. While this can be a lot of fun, sometimes it adds more to your already-busy schedule. How much running around will you have to do, and how much time will it take before you find all that you need to create the perfect costume? Thanks to the computer, it might not take much time at all.

Use the Internet to look up stores that specialize in kids costumes. The array of costumes you might find, from fairies to lions, comes in all sizes. All you have to do is click to order then wait until the costume arrives at your home. While you are on the store website, check to see if they have any chain stores that might be in your area. If so, you can call the store to see if they have the costume you want in their inventory. Drive over, and your child can try it on. You save the time of browsing through racks with this option.

If a used clothing store is more appropriate for your budget, you can still use the Internet to help save time. If your child needs a vintage costume, search for thrift shops that specialize in vintage clothing. If your child’s costume is more general, type your zip code into a map website, and do a specialized search for thrift stores. The addresses and phone numbers should show up on the screen. Use this information to determine store hours and to plan a route for travel so you can hit several thrift stores in the same general area in a short period of time.

Don’t forget to use your computer networking skills. Send a note to your friends and update your status to say that you are looking for specific items for your child’s costumer. You might be surprised at what shows up, saving you money and shopping time, thanks to the Internet.

Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: Clothing, Costume, Shopping

Is Your Teenager Failing School?

March 3, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

As a parent, you want to make sure that your teen is getting the best education possible. High school years are the foundation for adult life. If your teen is struggling to thrive in school, the first step toward success is to find your teen’s learning style.

The three primary types of learning include:

Auditory – An auditory learner does best when he talks aloud to others about the lesson at hand, hears the problem and explanation read by a teacher, or reads the lesson out loud to himself.
Visual – A teen that takes many notes, does best when reading silently, and often has a hard time concentrating when there is noise or activity in the immediate area is a visual learner.
Kinesthetic – If your teen likes the hands-on approach to most lessons, he is likely a kinesthetic learner. This means he is often anxious sitting in a quiet classroom; he would much rather be in the chemistry lab or a cooking class physically manipulating the objects involved in a lesson.

Once you are able to recognize your teen’s learning style, you can help him put together a plan of action that will allow him to succeed in school. After speaking with your teen, you may want to schedule an appointment with the school counselor. She should be able to steer your teen toward classes that better meet his needs. If, however, your teen’s school does not have alternatives to his current class work, it may be better to look into alternative schooling methods.

One alternative schooling method includes homeschooling, which is great for any type of learner–particularly if your teen leans toward the kinesthetic approach. Visual learners would do well enrolled in an online school curriculum. The work would be in front of him at all times, enabling him to absorb the lesson without disruption. Online video instruction can work well for auditory learners, as can smaller classes where students work in groups (check with your regional education center regarding availability in your area).

Filed Under: Advice, Parenting Tagged With: Education, Learning, Learning styles

Should you be Your Teen’s Best Friend?

February 28, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

You’ve always wanted to be a friend to your teen, but can you also discipline them effectively?

Crossing the lines of friendship and parenting can be a real trick, but there needs to be a balance, according to most experts that believe we are a discipline oriented parent until our child moves away from home. When our teen still lives with us, we have an opportunity to have fun, but more important, allow him or her to see the line drawn in the rock.

A few things to remember:

Be a parent first. When push comes to shove, and there will definitely be a lot of emotional shoving, you’ll want to be standing on firm ground. Friends share equal territory, and while a fine venture when going shopping or seeing a movie with your teen; friendship should favor parenting when it comes to disciplining and giving direction.
Show, by example, that you’re teen is important in your life. This means time with them, yes, but it also means that you don’t speak about them negatively behind their back or share secrets they have offered in confidence with your adult friends. If there is concern about something your teen has shared, confide in your husband or wife, thus keeping family issues as private as possible.
Communicate your feelings. Alow your teen to communicate the same. Teens need someone to look up to, to help them as they make important key decisions in their life such as college and marriage. If you have opened the doors of communication when things are clear, when difficulty strikes, it will be that much easier for your teen to tell you about it.

Filed Under: Parenting, Relationships Tagged With: Friendship, Parent, Teenagers

Best Discipline Tips for Teens

February 26, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

You have a teen in your household, maybe two, and you are struggling with discipline. How do you get your son or daughter to come home on time? How do you get them to clean their room, or pick up after themselves?

Try these tips for better behavior:

Sit down with your teen and create a schedule together. Post the schedule in the kitchen where everyone can see the duties expected. The kitchen is a great gathering place, so your teen can’t complain that they didn’t know what was expected—especially if you tape the schedule to the fridge.
Have a consequence listed for failure to complete a particular assignment. For example, if you tell you’re teen that he or she must be home by 10 p.m. during the school week and he or she returns at 10:15, make sure that you talk over the problem. Yes, 15 minutes isn’t TOO late, but if your teen feels they can get away with 15 minutes, they will push for 30 the next time.
If your teen consistently has a problem with an area of expectation, re-work the schedule—find out what can be done differently to complete the task.
Give positive rewards for completion. A dinner out with dad; a trip to the nearest fishing hole.
Let your teen know of your love for them despite the disciple measure. Open the lines of communication by listening more than speaking.

Because your teen is more important than the “thing” he or she is not doing, it’s important to ask questions as well as listen. You may discover that you’re teen in reality “messed up” because they were unclear about how to do something you expected of them.

Filed Under: Advice, Parenting Tagged With: Adolescence, Parent, Youth

Keeping Your Child Safe Inside the Home

February 20, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Statistics surround us each day, and in the increasingly digital world in which we live, numbers, averages, and facts can take on a rather impersonal feel. It’s one thing to hear that one in four women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetimes; it’s another thing entirely to think that your own child could be subject to this eventuality. But the harsh reality is that even at this very moment, your very young child could be being targeted by a predator with exceedingly harmful intentions, without your knowledge. Never before has access to the inside of a stranger’s home been so utterly simple as it is today. And that includes access to your child’s room, if there is a computer located there.

In the digital age, it’s a constant question: do parents limit their child’s access to computers in order to keep them out of chat rooms where they might fall prey to a predator? Or do they implement child monitoring tools on the computer in question, in order to help safeguard their child? Taking the first route of limiting access is akin to not allowing a child to read. This is harmful to their well being in life. The best route to take is to allow computer access, but to limit what your kids can get into.

Because after all, a child’s natural curiosity can lead them right into the waiting clutches of an Internet fiend. Many children have been successfully lured into trouble by someone who is attempting to molest them, and it happens right in their own home! PC Tools can give parents peace of mind by allowing them to monitor which areas of the web their child visits. In an age where sex offenders don’t stop at sexual abuse, but then proceed on to murder, it’s more necessary than ever before to use software in your child’s defense.

Filed Under: Advice, Parenting Tagged With: Child abuse, Children Youth and Family, Sexual abuse

Best Driving Advice for Parents of Teens

February 19, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Have a new driver within your household? Going crazy already? Take a look at these tips for smooth driving for both you and your new driver.

Borrowing the car should rarely be “on the spot or last minute” unless the need for the car is a “real” emergency. Driving privileges are just that, privileges, and should be treated as such. Your teen should let you know in advance when he or she will need the car and the times involved in such a loan. If you’re teen keeps their promise, then the next lend is available.
Allow your teen to make short grocery trips and other errands for you. This gives them driving experience and creates more time in your day to do other things.
If your teen has their own car, make sure you are still aware of where he or she is going. Cell phones are great, but getting a heads up before they leave the house will calm your nerves a bit.
Make some time to drive with your teen. You’ve probably had some pre-driver’s license experience, but keep in mind that becoming an expert at driving takes time and practice. Let your teen know when he or she makes a blunder, and how best to improve the mistake.
Keep calm when you are driving with your teen. Even if you’re heart is racing, speak as calmly as possible unless you are threatened with real and immediate danger.

In the long run, driving with a teen doesn’t have to be too traumatic or worrisome if you keep the lines of communication open and spend some time with your teen doing this “latest and greatest” new thing.

Filed Under: Advice, Parenting Tagged With: Driver's license, Driving, Parent

Breaking the News to Your Kids

February 17, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

In this country, a lot of people are divorced, whether they have children or not. And while the divorce process is almost never a very pleasant experience, it is made even more difficult when children are involved. But even more difficult than the process of legally separating yourself from a partner is informing the children that you love (and want to marry) someone new. This is not an easy bit of news for a child, a teenager, or even a grown child to deal with, as it signifies a rejection of what once was. There is always the fantasy in the back of a child’s mind that their parents are eventually going to get back together. When one parent gets married again, that becomes even less likely.

You could simply inflict your will on your kids. You could tell them you’ve been shopping for engagement rings, say something a little bit like, “this is what we are doing, whether you like it or not,” and then let them cope with it according to their own individual temperaments. But this is a great way to start a lot of awkward dinners around the house, and to build up a lot of feelings of resentment. So don’t do that to your kids, as tempting as it might be.

A much better approach is to slowly introduce your new love to your kids, and let them get used to the idea that there is someone new in your life. Granted, this is probably going to upset them. But in time, if they can learn to like the new member of the family, they will most likely come to terms with this new reality. Remember to be very gentle about your new spouse’s role in the family’s hierarchy, or you will get an abundance of backlash. Leadership is just influence.

Filed Under: Parenting, Relationships Tagged With: Divorce, Family, Marriage

Childhood Symptoms

February 16, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Nothing makes a person more of a hypochondriac than having a child – when every sniffle and sore throat is surely a symptom of some heinous disease. There is nothing wrong with being a cautious parent; paying attention to every symptom is important. However, raising a child to be fearful at every turn is not healthy for them or for you.

The way to avoid harming your child with needless constant worry is to educate yourself about which symptoms are common and which require medical attention. Thankfully it is easier today with the Internet to quickly locate information but be sure to seek out websites by trained professionals.

Some parents opt to learn about those symptoms that are indicative of a life-threatening condition such as appendicitis, heat stroke, meningitis, asthma, pneumonia, childhood cancer and diabetes just to name a few. Obviously even this list could get pretty long when you consider all the diseases than can strike children. The key is to not become overwhelmed and fearful. Approach your research clinically so that should a serious symptom present itself you will know not to ignore it.

It can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking a symptom is more serious than it is. You have to remember that most often a sniffle is just a cold. Care must be taken to find a happy medium between attentiveness and paranoia.

All too often parents feel it is their fault if their children become ill when this is hardly ever the case. You cannot keep your child in a plastic bubble; they are going to catch things. On the bright side though, in many cases our immune system is strengthened when it combats an illness. Often, having a particular illness acts as a vaccine keeping us from ever having it again and some illnesses of this nature are even more dangerous if contracted as adults.

Filed Under: Advice, Parenting Tagged With: Disease, Hypochondriasis, Symptom