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Best Breakfasts for Kids

February 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Healthy Children for Life – Breakfast: Setting Your Child Up for Success

By Linda Miner RNC, CHN, CMTA

www.MyHealthyBalance.com

Imagine building a house without a foundation.  It may stay standing for awhile, but eventually it will start to shift and crack and eventually collapse. Starting the day with a healthy breakfast should be considered as important to your body as a solid foundation is to a house.

The word breakfast literally means “breaking the fast”.  After you stop eating in the evening, there is usually about 12 hours until you rise and eat again.  Although it is important for your body to rest during the night, it is extremely important to begin nourishing your body once you awaken.

As soon as you eat, your metabolism revs up. The internal organs, including the brain, can perform their respective functions and you have energy to begin your day.  If you don’t eat, your metabolism is not activated and the body starts to go into starvation mode.

The human body has a natural instinct to preserve itself and basic functions begin to slow down as the body responds to a lack of nutrients.  By not consuming breakfast, you stress your internal organs, you have trouble concentrating because there is no energy for your brain, and you create a body that is destined to be obese as it learns to hold onto fat due to this perceived famine.  Therefore, eating a healthy breakfast is an extremely important habit to teach your children.  So what are the best choices for breakfast?

Start with Fruit: A great habit to instill in your children is to have fresh, whole fruit to start the day.  Fruit gives you tons of energy, it’s full of nutrients and enzymes for digestion and most varieties have a good amount of fibre.

High Quality Carbohydrates: It is very important at every meal to have carbohydrates and protein.  Let’s start with the carbs.  When it comes to bread, insist on multigrain.  White bread should be considered a “treat” just like candy. My youngest daughter likes when I make “M&Ms”.  No, not the chocolate kind.  I toast up some sprouted multigrain bread.  Then after buttering it, I sprinkle a little cinnamon and evaporated cane juice (i.e. real sugar) on top.  Cinnamon is a great blood sugar stabilizer and powerful antioxidant.  Then I cut the bread into the letter “M”, the first letter of her name.  Somehow this makes it taste much more delicious.

Be Cautious with Cereals: Many people ask me about breakfast cereals and instant oatmeal.  I am not a fan because most are loaded with sugar, are low in protein and fibre and spike blood sugar levels.  Check the glycemic index (GI) and you will see that many cereals have a higher GI and spike blood sugar more than white sugar (http://www.glycemicindex.ca/glycemicindexfoods.pdf ).  You generally want to eat foods with a glycemic index rating of less than 55.  Do not be fooled by advertising that says “whole grain”.  That still usually just means one grain – NOT multigrain.

You want to purchase cereals that have more than one grain.  Nature’s Path (http://www.naturespath.com ), Kashi (http://www.kashi.com) and Bob’s Red Mill (http://www.bobsredmill.com ) brands have some excellent cereals, but make sure you check the nutrition label.  Look for at least 4g of protein and 3g of fibre.

High Quality Protein: Next, I would recommend a good source of protein.  Plain, low fat yogurt is great because it is loaded with protein, is an excellent source of calcium, has lots of good bacteria for the intestines and is easy to add flavor to.  Stir in the aforementioned fruit, some honey or maple syrup, some chopped up nuts and a high quality granola and you have a very satisfying breakfast.

Or make a smoothie with the fruit and yogurt.  In my experience, if you give them straws, kids are more likely to drink it.  It’s all about making it fun.  Stay away from presweetened yogurts that are loaded with sugar.

One of my daughters’ favorite breakfasts is what we call “string cheese egg”.  I pour egg whites into a fry pan and the girls “string” the part-skimmed mozzarella cheese over the top.  I serve it rolled up and they love it.  What a great blast of protein

By starting the day right, your kids will be ready to perform their best in school, in sports and in life.

Linda Miner is a Registered Nutritionist specializing in Metabolic Typing. Linda works with clients online to help them restore their health by re-establishing balance in the body. Through one-on-one coaching and an individualized food plan based on your unique characteristics, Linda can help you achieve Optimal Health. Learn more at www.iChange.com and www.MyHealthyBalance.com.

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Sibling Rivalry Help

February 12, 2010 By 1 Comment
parents-toolshop

Solving Sibling Strife

By Jody Johnston Pawel, LSW, CFLE

Some parents “let kids work it out” by doing nothing, but if the children use insults, humiliation, or physically duke it out, then it will only make matters worse!

Some parents will dive into the action and solve problems for their children. While this may bring peace and order quickly, it robs children of an opportunity to learn and practice resolving conflicts.

The healthiest approach is to teach children how to work out conflicts with each other, then allow them time to use the skills. If they don’t, then you intervene in a way that helps them solve the problem themselves, but with your guidance.

Here are some more practical tools to use:

A Helpful Way to Look at Sibling Relationships

Any two people in a relationship will likely experience conflict at some point.

How children handle these conflicts and relationships determines whether they will lead to sibling rivalry, which is when the sibling relationship becomes competitive and their treatment of teach other becomes destructive.

Our goal is not to insist that our children love or even like each other, but that they treat each other with respect, even when working out their conflicts.

Six Strategies for Preventing Rivalry

Many sibling conflicts are preventable if parents can address the causes of sibling rivalry. In my Solving Sibling Strife teleseminar, I offer the following:

1. When a new child joins the family, involve the older child from pregnancy and thereafter, instead of pushing away the child out of fear he or she might hurt the baby. Too often, this reject only fuels the child’s resentment and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy!

2. Avoid the Fair & Equal Trap. Instead, give according to individual needs. For example,

  • Instead of “I love you both the same,” describe why you love that child specially.
  • Instead of buying “equal” gifts, give according to need/desire
  • Instead of spending “equal” time, give according to needs and make it quality time.

3. Avoid Comparisons. Instead, simply say what you need to say to one child without any reference to the other.

4.  Avoid putting children in roles and using labels — even good ones. They foster resentment and jealousy.

5. Avoid Unhealthy Competition. In unhealthy competition, the pressure to win is more important than the fun of playing or the value of the skills we learn in the process. When parents encourage their children to race, to motivate them into action, there will always be a loser — usually the youngest or weakest child. Losing only discourages children more — and the more discouraged the child becomes the more likely the child will resent the winner and retaliate later. Instead, make an activity fun by singing a song or setting a timer to see how quickly the task can be done, with no winners or losers.

6. When disagreements escalate into fights, it is a symptom of the

feelings the children have but have difficulty expressing.  So allow children to have and express negative feelings about their siblings — as long as they express them respectfully.

Two Quick Responses that Can Stop Conflicts or Fights

1. Problem-Solving “On The Run”:

Sentence 1: acknowledge feelings and what the problem seems to be. Sentence 2: Ask what the child(ren) can do to solve the problem.

2. Tell them they need to solve the problem on their own, respectfully. If they can’t/won’t, tell them if you need to solve it for them, they might not like your solution AND they will have to do problem solving with you later to come up with a longer-term solution.

If they can’t work it out on their own

Use a 3-step process from The Parent’s Toolshop book that I call F-A-X Listening:

1. F-ocus on Feelings

Call a meeting and explain the purpose

Explain the ground rules

Write down each child’s feelings and concerns.  Read them aloud.

Allow each child time for rebuttal

2. A-sk helpful questions

See if you can help them identify what the real issue is. For example, if they are arguing over the remote but when you listen to their feelings you hear the issue is really personal space, that’s the problem you want them to solve.

3. X-amine possible solutions

Invite everyone to suggest as many solutions as possible.

Write down all the ideas.

Have them decide on the solutions they can both/all agree to.

Follow-up to see how things are working.

All it takes is doing this F-A-X problem-solving process a few times with verbal children and they will start using the process when you tell them to “work things out respectfully.”

Get more information from Jody Johnston Pawel, LSW, CFLE, second-generation parent educator, president of Parent’s Toolshop® Consulting, parenting expert to the media worldwide, and author of 100+ practical parenting resources, including the award-winning book, The Parent’s Toolshop at: http://www.parentstoolshop.com/

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Online Ancestry Search: Where to Start

February 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Finding Information on Your Family Ancestors Online

There’s only so much you can do to find information about your ancestors from using old family records, newspapers, and such. Sometimes you have to search elsewhere, particularly if you’ve run into a road block. Finding information on your family ancestors online is one way to get past those road blocks and get back on track.

Obviously you’ll need to have a starting place when you’re searching for your family online. You may have a list of names, birth and death dates, and places of birth or death. These are a great place to begin, no matter how you go about finding your ancestors.

Obituaries are printed for everyone who passes away. If your loved one passed away after 1962, you can search the Social Security Death Index to determine exact date of death. The index will provide the person’s birth date, death date, and the place they last resided.  You may also want to try Genealogy Bank which has obituaries from over 1100 newspapers dating as far back at 1977.

If you already have some information about family members from the past, you may want to search for them on other online websites. Some genealogy websites are free to access and those might be the best place to start looking if you’re new to genealogy. After you’ve learned more about your family you may want to sign up for a subscription on the membership-based genealogy sites.

Free genealogy websites you may want to check out when finding information on your family ancestors include:
* Rootsweb.com
* MyHeritage.com
* FamilySearch.org
* EllisIsland.org
* CyndisList.com
* USGenWeb.com

Each of these websites will provide you with search functions as well as give you information on the best methods to search for your family online. Many genealogy websites also have forums where people can ask for information from people around the world.

The better-known genealogy websites require paid membership. These include Ancestry.com, Genealogy.com, WorldVitalRecords.com, and OneGreatFamily.com. These paid websites can be as little as $3.33 per month or as much as $24.95 per month depending upon if you choose to access to files in the United States or worldwide. Normally you will be billed annually for your membership.

If you’re not sure a paid membership site is right for you, most of them have trial memberships between one and two weeks. That will give you ample time to do some searching, find information that will be helpful in locating your family members, and let you know if there is a need to sign up.

As with any attempt at finding information on your family ancestors online, be sure to spell their name correctly. If you’re having problems finding them, you may want to consider that the surname (last name) may have changed over time. Try variations of spellings to ensure you find the people you’re looking for.

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Get Back to Family Dinner

February 5, 2010 By Leave a Comment
lynne-kenney

Engage with your kids each night with help from Dr. Lynne Kenney. Includes creative “theme ideas” for every day of the week.

Lynne KenneyGet Back to Family Dinner

By Dr. Lynne Kenney
www.lynnekenney.com

Families today are busy. With after school sports and other activities driving our lives, a sit down dinner often falls off the “to-do list.” But a family dinner is more than just eating vegetables: research shows that sitting down to dinner is an important protective factor in maintaining the health and well-being of your children.

Dinnertime is the perfect opportunity to relax, connect and talk about your day. It’s a non-threatening environment that can really help your kids open up to you and tell you what’s going on in their lives. It’s your chance to get to know one another, learn about your likes and dislikes and create memories. Make it relaxed, have fun and enjoy.

Not sure where to start, here are two steps to getting back to family dinner:

1. Establish a set dinnertime: By making it part of your routine, it becomes a comforting norm. Dinner is anticipated and expected. You don’t really have to be at the dinner table in your home. Make dinner wherever you are. Family dinner can take place anywhere, by the soccer field, in the driveway or while waiting for your daughter to get out of gymnastics. The key is to be present with your children, engage with them, take the time to get to know who they are as they change and grow.

2. Engage your children in activities that extend beyond the dinner hour: Help your kids do their homework after dinner.  Play card games, make-up math fact fun, or paint, draw and write songs. Any activity that brings you together makes mealtime meaningful. Take your time, talk, laugh and talk for minutes or hours.

On the nights when you eat at the table, you can even establish a specific theme for each night of the week:

Monday Night is Discovery Night
Bring the “Discovery Box” to the dinner table. Place unique, familiar or fascinating objects in a box and allow each child to pull an object and talk about it. After dinner go on-line or take a trip to your local library to learn more about topics related to the things in your discovery box.

Tuesday Night is Reading Night
Prepare early readers by bringing everyday objects to the table that have words or print on them, such as cereal boxes and other items in your cupboard. Play reading and guessing games using the printed materials. Play games with the words, making silly sentences, tongue twisters and fun stories.

Wednesday Night “You are a STAR”
Play find your “Star Word.” Assign one word to each child. That is the word that makes them A STAR at this meal. Frequently occurring words such as “The, and, it, him, her, she, he” are good beginning words. Then have each child bring a book to the table, choose a page, and name how many times their STAR word appears. That number becomes the child’s “Magic Number” for the night and every time he encounters that number for the rest of the evening he gets to make a wish or discuss his current life dreams and aspirations.

Thursday Night is Show and Tell
Play show and tell at your family table. Have your children bring an object, a piece of art, a song or something to share. Shine the “spot-light” on one child at a time and allow only him or her to share.

Friday Night is Family History Night
Bring family photos, heirlooms or pieces of family history to the table and talk about your family ancestry and historical family members’ life experiences.

Saturday Night is Game Night
Play board games, cards, chess or checkers at the table after dinner to enhance your family experience.

Sunday Night You’re on Broadway!
Put on a show, dance, sing, do a skit. Laugh and “lift each other up” with genuine compliments, enthusiasm and joy.

Dinnertime is your time to connect so whether stationary or on the run, you enhance family relationships and help your children develop trust when you extend your family dinner with family fun!

About the Author:
Dr. Kenney is an avid writer, blogger and media producer. She co-produced six videos with BabyFirst TV, and appears as a resident expert on Sonoran Living ABC 15. Lynne hosts The Family Coach Solution Studio on BlogTalk Radio. Her Better Living Content has appeared on ABC, the Montel Williams Show, and various child/family websites (including Ladies Home Journal and Better Homes and Gardens). Dr. Kenney is a consultant to The International Nanny Association and The National Head Start Association, for whom she was National Ambassador, 2007. Find more at www.lynnekenney.com.

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Valentine Party! 11 Games Kids Love

February 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment

If you are planning a Valentine’s Day party for children, games are essential. Here are some ideas appropriate for various age groups.

Valentines Day Party Games For Elementary Kids

“Throwing the Smile” Game
Sit everyone in a circle and have one person smile wildly at the rest of the group. Everyone else must sit as stone-faced as possible. Then the person smiling dramatically wipes the smile off her face (by literally wiping her hand over her  mouth in a swiping motion) and “throws” the smile to the next person in the circle. That person puts the smile on, and again makes a wild, silly smile at the group, then wipes it off and moves on. As soon as someone smirks or smiles that is not supposed to be smiling at that moment, he or she is out. It’s harder than it sounds and kids often end up in fits of laughter.

Pillow Race
Bring in two large stuffed hearts (either pillows or just plush stuffed hearts). Divide the kids into two teams and tell them they must run to the finish line with the heart between their legs. (They won’t be running so much as stumbling forward.) Once they return to the group, they should take the heart and give it to the next child, who puts it between their legs and so on. Whichever group finishes the entire relay first wins.

Wrap the Gift
Give the children a couple rolls of toilet paper and instruct them to wrap another child mummy style. This is a popular game at Halloween, but in this case they are wrapping a present. Divide the kids into two teams and time them. The team that finishes first, wins, and gets to put a big red bow on their “package”.

Famous Couples
Help elementary students remember some of the great couples by having them complete the match to a famous other half. For example, if you say “Romeo” their answer would be “Juliet” (hopefully). To play this game, divide the kids into two groups and give each a buzzer or similar type item. Present the famous start of the pair. You might say, “peanut butter” and if one of the teams knows the match is “jelly” they will buzz in with their answer.
Some other options are:
“Eggs and (bacon)”
“Coffee and (sugar or cream is OK here)”
“Cinderella and (Prince Charming)”
“Cookies and (milk)”

Heart Stacking Contest
Kids love those little Valentine’s candy conversation hearts available everywhere around Valentine’s Day. Create a heart-stacking contest, which is a lot of fun and can create some team spirit. Initially, each child will get many hearts. Plan to have a few bags on hand if you are doing this game with a classroom full of kids.

Have them build as high as they can with the hearts within in a given period of time (30 seconds to a minute is plenty). If their contraption falls, they are out. Keep playing the game over and over again until you are down to two final contestants. Have everyone cheer him or her on as they try to build the highest (and longest lasting) tower of hearts. Be sure to have a prize for the winning architect.

Valentine’s Bingo
All kids love a good game of Bingo. For a seated game that might help the kids rest for a minute, play a game of Valentine’s Day-themed bingo. The bingo squares might have pictures on them like hearts, flowers, cupid, arrows and the like. Be sure to have a prize for the winner, and play the game over and over so the kids can all have a turn at winning.

Valentines Day Games For Preschoolers

Valentine Fishing
Preschool-age children love to fish. You can create a fishing game with small toy fishing poles and hearts (as fish). Use an empty plastic tub as your “lake” and put into it red hearts cut out of construction paper or cardstock. Each heart is good for a prize. One might be good for a Hershey’s kiss, or other small candy, another might be for a small plastic heart. Put magnets on the cardstock hearts and a magnet on the fishing pole. Then the kids can “fish” for hearts and win a prize at the same time. Each child should only be allowed to “catch” one fish each.

Balloon Races
Preschoolers love balloons and you can create a heart target for them to aim their balloons at. Create a target out of cardboard or heavy cardstock and put it on the floor somewhere. You might want to have several targets on the floor. Give the kids balloons that have been blown up but aren’t tied shut. Let them let go of the balloons in the direction of the target and see where their balloon lands. Be forewarned: kids will want to play this over and over again, so either have plenty of balloons ready to go (perhaps held closed with a clothespin) or have plenty of adults around who want to blow up balloon after balloon.

You can also play a similar game by putting a heart target into a box or laundry basket and having the children try to hit the target with an inflated balloon.  Be sure to provide prizes for everyone!

“Cupid, Cupid, Love” and “Cupid Says”
Preschool age children love a good game of “Duck Duck Goose” or “Simon Says”. For Valentine’s Day, you can put a twist on these classic games. Have the kids play a game of “Cupid, Cupid, Love” instead of “Duck, Duck, Goose” or have them play “Cupid Says” instead of “Simon Says”. Be sure to add a smooch at the end of each order in “Cupid Says” or have the kids incorporate Valentine’s Day activities, like “Cupid says, give your neighbor a hug”.

Valentine 20 Questions
Preschool teachers might want to encourage creative thinking with a little game of “Valentine’s 20 questions”. The teacher can have a visual in mind, which might be a heart, or Cupid, or a card or something relative to the holiday. The teacher says “I’m thinking…:” and the children must ask questions about what the teacher is thinking. The teacher can give tiny clues along the way especially if he or she is losing the interest of the younger children in the group. Whoever figures out what the teacher is thinking can be the next one to begin the next round of 20 questions. Be sure to ask the child what they are thinking before the next round begins or it could go on longer than it needs to!

Pin the Heart on Cupid
Children love “pin the tale on the donkey” so why not “pin the heart on Cupid”? In this game, simply provide each child with a big red heart with his or her name on it. Have a big cutout of Cupid on a wall and blindfold each child, spin him or her around and have them stick their heart on Cupid (there should be adhesive of some sort on the back of the heart). Once everyone has stuck their hearts, let them look at where they ended up.

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The Best Insurance for Raising Safe and Happy Kids

January 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Paula Statman Head Shot

Paula Statman Head ShotThe Best Insurance for Raising Safe and Happy Kids
By Paula Statman, M.S.S.W.

Love is more than a wonderful gift to give your children; it’s also good insurance.  Showing your love tells them they are worthy of love and respect and shapes their expectations of how others treat them.

A child who feels loved is less likely to look for love in the wrong places…from the wrong people. It’s a documented fact that kids who feel loved don’t accept affection from just anyone who offers it.  They accept it from those who respect them and their boundaries.

Children who have an unwavering belief that they are loveable and worthwhile know they don’t have to “earn” someone’s love by doing something they don’t want to do.  On the other hand, children who are hungry for affection are more likely to believe they don’t deserve to be loved and that love has a price tag.

So, telling our kids we love them every single day—including those days when we question why we became parents—is good insurance.  It makes our kids less vulnerable to being exploited.  It shows them that they are treasured and worth treasuring.  It makes them feel cherished and special.  And that’s how we want them to feel when they go out the door.

Here are some examples of how to express your love and appreciation anytime, anywhere.

Things you can say:

  • I love you.
  • I am so lucky that you are mine.
  • I’m so proud of you.
  • You are very special to me.
  • I love spending time with you.

Things you can do:

  • Show your pleasure. Let your children know that parenting is something you enjoy, not a dreary chore that exhausts you.  Take good care of yourself so that you have the time and energy to be the kind of parent you want to be.
  • Learn about your children.  You are an important observer of your children’s behavior and the person they turn to when they have questions and concerns.  If you don’t feel comfortable in this role, consider taking parenting classes.
  • Appreciate their special qualities.  These include personality traits that make them good human beings, like kindness, intelligence or compassion for others.  Appreciate how unique they are…just as they are.
  • Care about and get involved with their interests, whether it’s school, baseball, ballet or other activities.  The more they see your interest, the better they feel about themselves.  Show up in your kids’ lives as their number one fan!
  • Take time to listen to your children wholeheartedly, without distraction.  Being listened to and understood is something all children want.  Be a parent your kids can come to who listens, understands, and believes them.  This kind of attention is worth its weight in gold.
  • Spend time one-on-one with your kids.  Make a date, schedule it and don’t postpone it due to work or other demands in your life.  Make this time a regular thing, rather than a special occurrence.  Time invested now will bring major returns in the long run.
  • Celebrate your child. Look for creative ways to send the message that you feel like the luckiest parent in the world.  Make a big deal of your kid, without spending a ton of money.  The key is to find fun ways to share joy and laughter in your relationship and show how much you appreciate and cherish your child.

There are many ways to show your love and appreciation.  Remember, the more you show, the happier and safer your children will be.

About the Author:
Paula Statman offers advice for Raising Uncommonly Wise Kids with Common Sense Wisdom.  An award-winning author, speaker and media guest expert, Paula provides practical tips and hope to parents and professionals who work with children.  For more articles and information about her books and speaking topics, visit www.kidwisecorner.com.

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Teaching Empathy to Children

January 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

By Annye Rothenberg, Ph.D.

www.PerfectingParentingPress.com

Many parents are noticing that their children don’t seem very empathetic. Parents and teachers are concerned that too many children don’t a ppear to notice others’ feelings or care if others are upset.

Empathy is the cornerstone for meaningful, close, and satisfying connections between people – both children and adults. We want our children to care about others. We want them to be able to look at things from the other’s perspective – not just from their own. Seeing only your own perspective makes you more self-centered and selfish and less likely to take responsibility for your actions. People who understand how their actions affect others are likely to choose more appropriate behavior, show better judgment, and repair rifts in their relationships with others.

Some children tend to be more naturally empathetic and some – even in the same family – seem to lack the trait. The jury is still out on how much is genetic versus environmental, but it is clear that children can become more empath etic with help from the adults in their lives. Parents are the first and foremost teachers.

Before we look at strategies for teaching empathy, let’s clear up one area of confusion about the “sensitive child. There are two very different types of sensitivity. There is the empathetic person who is sensitive to others and reads people’s feelings and moods easily. And there is the sensitive person whose feelings are often hurt by the smallest of things – a joke, a tone of voice, etc. It’s important to know that being self-sensitive doesn’t mean a person is empathetic – the opposite may be true. Thin-skinned people are overly sensitive to comments., etc., which would roll right off most people’s backs.  Overly or self-sensitive children and adults often over-react to the interpersonal environment and take things too personally, suffering unnecessary emotional pain. They tend to use s o much energy in that way that they have little left to notice other people’s distress and reach out to them.   Self-sensitive people often need help learning not to be so affected by others before they can be empathetic. There are ways that people can become less thin-skinned, but that’s a topic for another article.

Now, let’s look at strategies for teaching empathy to children:

First, make sure you don’t overserve your child. Don’t do things for him that kids his age can do for himself, such as putting away his toys or picking up his dropped pencil. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do occasional kindnesses, but if you fall into a pattern of acting as your child’s servant, he learns that only he and no one else matters.

Second, put yourself in the picture. When he doe s or says something unkind or disrespectful to you, tell him how you feel when anyone does that to you. It’s more effective to emphasize that you would be annoyed or hurt by that behavior from anyone, not just him, so he understands that it’s not about him personally. Then explain that he’ll need to do something very kind to make it up to you. If your child can ignore you, be rude to you, or treat you like a servant, his empathy for anyone but himself will be lacking.

Third, create a family culture in which parents talk about incidents from their day (though not situations serious enough to worry or upset a child) and how they made them feel – the enjoyable and the difficult emotions. Show that you’re not perfect and encourage the family to be supportive and kind. This helps children talk more openly about themselves without fear of being judged or advised.

Fourth, as you talk about incidents in your day, try to give the views of the other participants as well as your own. Discuss why the people involved might have done what they did. For example, you might describe saying something angry to your friend because she was late meeting you for lunch, and then learning that her car wouldn’t start. Too many children are told only their parents’ side, which can sound like it’s always the other person’s fault. Try discussing why people acted the way they did. If someone was unfair or unkind, help your children consider that the others might have been preoccupied or upset about something.  Children develop more empathy if parents and other family members are encouraged to look at others’ motivations, feelings, and behavior. Encourage the children to talk about what else a person could do in a difficult interaction to make it go better. Family members might enjoy some role-playing.

Fifth, when your child gets to the point where he shares the things he did in his day that weren’t kind enough to others, think about how you’re trying to teach him empathy. The most common method of teaching empathy — asking: “How would you feel if someone said that to you?” – is often ineffective because most children either have developed an automatic answer like “bad” or “unhappy,” or use a more teasing and defiant answer such as, “I’d like it.” When discussing their behavior, it’s more effective to ask thought-provoking questions, such as: “What do you think that person is thinking about you now?” or “What will the boy you were teasing be telling his parents?” or “Now what are your thoughts about what happened?” Then you can ask, “What ideas do you have about what you could have done differe ntly?”

Finally, as your child makes efforts to work on his empathy, of course, you’ll want to praise him. And as with any skills we teach our children, parents often improve as well – that’s another of the many joys and benefits of raising children.

About the Author:
Annye Rothenberg, Ph.D., author, has been a child/parent psychologist and a specialist in childrearing and development of young children for more than 25 years. Her parenting psychology practice is in Redwood City, California. She is also on the adjunct faculty in pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Rothenberg was the founder/director of the Child Rearing parenting program in Palo Alto, California, and is the author of the award-winning books Mommy and Daddy are Always Supposed to Say Yes … Aren’t They? and Why Do I Have To? and the just released I Like To Eat Treats. These are all-in-one books with a story for young children and a manual for parents. For more information about her books and to read her articles, visit www.PerfectingParentingPress.com. To order from amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=b.annye+rothenberg&x=8&y=20

Also by Annye Rothenberg: Six Tools for Getting Through to Your Preschooler

Filed Under: Parenting Tips Tagged With: , ,

Our New Year’s Eve: Sparkling Strawberry Knudsen’s, Sleeping Bags, and Celebrating Every Tiny Thing

December 31, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Here’s our rockin’ New Year’s Eve tradition.

We’re all so excited we might have to start early.

First, the five of us have a nice dinner (meaning something that isn’t cereal) and then. afterward, we each get a glass of bubbly. Ty and I get some cheap champagne and the kids get some sparkling Strawberry Knudsen’s juice and we go around and around and around the table talking about things.

When it’s your turn, you say something that you enjoyed over the year, something you are thankful for, or something you want to do in the year ahead (whether it’s a resolution or just a new thing you want to try). You can tell someone you love them or you can say something that’s totally random. No matter what it is, as soon as the person is done talking, we all clap and cheer like we’ve lost our minds.

We keep going like this until we all run out of things to say, which generally takes about 2 hours (really.)

When it’s his turn, my son says the same thing over and over. He’s especially fond of saying “I’m thankful for our house,” “I’m thankful for my neighborhood” and my all-time favorite: “I’m thankful for my mommy.” My oldest has some deep things to say and I can tell she’s been giving it some thought. My middle child giggles a lot and is mostly thankful for her toys and her friends and her dog.

When we’re all done at the table, we turn off all the lights, get in our sleeping bags and squish all together on the living room floor to watch whatever the kids pick out (usually the Nickelodeon New Year Countdown) until they fall asleep.

Each year, they are ambitious; each of them knows they are going to stay up until midnight. And, each year, they fall asleep by the second or third episode of iCarly. It’s the best New Year’s tradition I can imagine.

Happy New Year from our family to yours! 2010 is going to be amazing!

Here are some New Year’s articles at Momscape you might enjoy:

No More New Year’s Resolutions
Ditch the New Year’s Resolutions and make a mission statement instead.

Time Capsule of Family Memories
Family fun for the New Year.

Filed Under: Essays Tagged With: ,

Christmas Party Games for the Whole Family

December 23, 2009 By 2 Comments

Here are fun Christmas party game ideas for the entire family.

1. Christmas Word Search. Find holiday word search puzzles on the Internet or in bookstores. Make enough copies for all. Using a timer, give everyone three minutes to find as many words from the list as they can.

2. Holiday Win, Lose or Draw. Remember the TV show? Divide into two teams and have a list of holiday phrases and song lyrics written down on slips of paper. One team member chooses a phrase and then draws it while the other members try to guess. Your team gets 90 seconds to guess correctly. If they can’t, play passes to the other team.

3. Name that Holiday Tune. Divide into two teams. Have a list of holiday songs written on slips of paper. One person from each team chooses a slip of paper and hums the tune for the rest of the team. Teammates have five or ten seconds to name the holiday tune. If they can’t, play passes to the other team.

4.  DVD games. There are a number of DVD games on the market that can make it easy to play big group games.  Here are some favorites:

Family Feud DVD Game

Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? DVD Game

Who Wants To Be a Millionaire DVD Game

There are lots of other games that are great for large groups. Play Charades with a holiday theme or play Catch Phrase, a game that is particularly well-suited for groups of any size. Mad Gab is always good for a giggle, especially in large groups, but it works better with groups of 12 or fewer.

Whatever games you play, it can spice up the game if you have prizes for the winners. These can be small candies or items from Oriental Trading. Or use fake money and have a Christmas Auction House.

Here’s how it works: Instead of giving assorted prizes for winning games, give game money, which you can call Reindeer Bucks or Santa Bucks. At the end of the game session, each person with money can bid on a gift that they want from the gift table. Have everything wrapped so no one knows what exactly they are bidding on.You’ll want to buy enough gifts for everyone to take home something as a fun and festive party favor.

Happy holidays!

Filed Under: Parenting Tips Tagged With: ,

Christmas Crafts and Activities – 7 Boredom Busters for Kids on Holiday Break

December 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment

It’s the first day of holiday break. Here are few crafts and other boredom-busting indoor activities for keeping your kiddos busy today (and beyond).

1. Make your own snow globes. Gather some glass or clear plastic containers, such as baby food jars or mustard or mayonnaise jars. After you wash and dry the jars, gather some small Christmas decorations or knickknacks. Use some waterproof glue to affix your figurines inside the jar. Decorate with stickers or other holiday items. Then fill the jar with water and some glitter. Glue the lid in place and let dry.

2. Make candy crafts and ornaments to give away. Here’s a quick and easy idea to get you started: Make a candy train. Take a roll of Lifesavers or other hard candy to make the main part of the train. Glue on individually wrapped peppermints for the wheels. Glue a square candy, such as a caramel or a Starburst, to the front. Add a string to create a holiday ornament. Ask your kids to come up with other things they can make with different sizes and shapes of candy: angels, robots, puppies and more.

3. Make homemade Christmas cards. Provide a variety of supplies, such as construction paper, card stock, scissors, glue, glitter and glitter glue, pencils, crayons, and makers as well as old Christmas cards. Turn the kids loose with their creative energy to make festive handmade cards. Deliver them to friends and neighbors atop loaves of quick bread or tins of cookies. (We made this Cranberry Orange Walnut Streusel Bread the other day and it was a hit with the entire family. Yum!)

4. Have your kids help you wrap gifts. Here are 24 creative holiday gift wrap ideas and here are some eco-friendly gift wrapping ideas.

5. Make sugar or gingerbread cookies together and let the kids decorate. Then put them in decorative tins and give to family and friends.

6. Make holiday wreaths. Supply the kids with red, white and green chenille stems, as well as some small bells, beads and bits of ribbon. The kids can braid or twist the chenille stems and shape them into a circle for a cute ornament or decoration to hang on the tree or to share with friends.

7. Make other handmade gifts. Everyone excels at making something. Teach the kids how to create something that comes easily to you. Some ideas: handmade soaps and bubble bath, scarves, candy, mini scrapbook albums, a poem or more homemade food. Here are more simple holiday gift ideas for your neighbors.

What are more holiday boredom busters? Please share below!

Filed Under: Family Fun
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