Kid Stuf

First day jitters are normal and must be expected for children who are being initiated into a weekly routine at a day care center. As a parent, you must do what you can to prepare your child for this day. Start by having a little chat with your child about what it is going to be like at the daycare center. Do not worry, if your child is a little toddler, clear explanations can be understood. All the while, maintain a happy and positive tone in your voice, which will convey to your child that the change will be a good one.

Explain to your child, which days of the week will include him being in childcare. You could even use a calendar to show him the days you work, which would then be the days he would be at the day care center.
Try reading or watching programs about childcare. You might be able to find one that explains what a day at a childcare center is like, while others also address children’s feelings about being away from home and their parents.

Remember, that you also must be prepared. It is important that you choose a good childcare center for your son or daughter. Meet the workers there and ensure that they will treat your child well and be attentive to their needs.

Before your child’s first day at the childcare center, here are a few things you should do:

-Visit the childcare center with your child. Give him a little tour of the place.

-Show him where the other children eat, take a nap and play.

-Give him some time with his childcare provider. You could also invite him/her home so your child can get to know him/her.

-Another method of acclimatizing your child to the change would be to invite one of the children at the childcare center for a ‘play’ session with your child. This way, the first day will not be so bad.

Childcare professionals use the term ‘developmentally appropriate care’ quite frequently. The term referred to 360° childcare considers development on many levels including social, emotional, physical and intellectual.

Caring for children in a uniform manner is not sufficient. Guidelines on how to best take care of a child do exist, as do those that refer to different levels of care, depending on the different stages of development. These are merely guidelines, to assist parents and care providers in understanding children better while helping them towards development in all aspects of their lives.

Listed below are guidelines which focus on developmental appropriateness:

1. Age appropriateness – deals with growth and change which take place in children during the early stages of their lives

2. Individual appropriateness – each child has their own growth patterns and timing.

Developmentally appropriate care for infants and toddlers

The environment is the initial channel through which infants and toddlers learn basic things. By interacting with adults, their sense of trust is built. Adults who are consistently around the child must spend ample time with them, playing, talking to them and holding them. It is the adult who is an infant’s primary teacher. Simple things like toilet training, dressing, feeding must be taught, and the child must be allowed to carry out these tasks by themselves when ready.

Toddlers need a fair amount of resources to learn new things. Music, pictures, games are important towards their development as is space for them to run around and explore. Reading aloud to them and teaching them new words helps improve their language.

Developmentally appropriate care for three to five year olds
Blocks, puzzles, toys, story-telling are all ideal learning activities for three year olds. This will help enhance their language skills, motor skills and movement.

Four year olds are able to identify colours, shapes and objects. They will enjoy little projects like cutting paper, pasting, colouring, etc.
The memory and motor skills in five years olds are constantly developing, so adults must be willing and amiable to listen to them, encourage them on and build confidence.

Children can be absolutely honest to the point of being rude. However, keep in mind that they are not aware of making such ‘rude’ comments. They simply say what they think and feel. A good example is when a child receives a gift, they are quite likely to say something to the effect of “I already have this” or “This is not what I wanted”. By teaching them and instilling in them a sense of politeness, such ‘rude’ remarks can be prevented.

Perhaps you could try a mock gift-giving session with your child to ascertain what a likely response could be. Try different situations with a range of gifts asking the child what he would say. Trying taking him through possibilities such as getting a gift he already has, getting something he does not like and getting something he really likes. Help him with what he should say and should not. Your child’s comments sometimes can be somewhat embarrassing and sound rude and thoughtless. Remember: do not correct your child in front of others. This can be embarrassing for him. In the case of an impolite comment, take him aside and correct him privately. Point out the error and suggest something he could say to his ‘gift giver’.

After all this, if you child still is not aware that his comments are rude, this could be that you are not training him often enough. With children, once is just not enough. Make an extra effort to carry out constant training about manners and how to react politely in different situations.

Instilling good manners in children is not always easy nor is it fun. However, good manners will help your child have better friendships, happy family relationships as well as adjusting to societal changes. Children are not born with good manners, it has to be taught. Patience is needed as well as constant practice to help your child understand the value of good manners. Constant repetition over time and your child will begin to naturally repeat things taught at a young age.

Writing thank you notes is an often overlooked social grace. However, it is important that children learn from a young age that it is appropriate to write thank you notes every time they receive presents or have been guests at someone’s home. Here are a few ways of instilling the habit of writing thank you notes.

Practice makes perfect: every time your child receives a gift, help her to write a thank you note. Initially you can start off by helping her with suggesting an opening line, but over time she should get used to the idea of writing notes of appreciation.
Use the computer: kids love to use the computer and are quite familiar with its applications. Let them use the computer to compose their thank-you notes. Perhaps a personal comment on the computer-generated note could add that personal touch.
Make it fun: tell your child that thank you notes do not have to be boring. Encourage them to be creative. They can make a collage, a drawing or anything else they like, as long as it says ‘thank you’.

At parties, children get so caught up in the moment and excitement that they tend to forget all the manners they’ve learnt, even to the point of embarrassment for you as the parent. Here are the four P’s to consider, in order to achieving model behaviour from your child:

Prepare: When invited to a party, take the time to review what kind of behaviour would be expected of your child. This kind of ‘preventative’ parenting is best at times like this. Make a list of party rules and explain them to your child in detail and the importance of abiding by them. Remember to refresh your child’s mind just before you leave for the party. Keep a close eye on him at the party. If his behaviour starts to wane, a simple reminder of the rules should do.

Pretend: ‘Role-play’ is a good tool to use to get your child to understand the importance of manners. This works especially with younger children. Throw a simple ‘pretend’ party that gives you the opportunity to help your child practise ‘good behaviour’ and their manners like they would at the real party. Exaggerating your manners during the role-play is a good idea in order to drive the point home.

Privacy: Do not scold or correct your child in front of other guests. Give them some privacy in a private room or bathroom. Discuss what happened, what was wrong. Remember to keep your chat with your child very brief. Point out what was done wrong and give out specific instructions and reminders about manners learnt and the kind of behaviour expected from him.

Pace: Sometimes the party either does not meet the expectations of your child, or he seems overwhelmed with all the activity, which might cause him to misbehave. It helps if you remove him from the party for a few minutes to recuperate. A glass of water, a hug and a kiss might just be the trick to encourage better behaviour.

Whether you plan on getting laser teeth whitening or you’re more interesting in the traditional methods of bleaching, there are some considerations to keep in mind. Not everyone will obtain the same results, and not everyone will necessarily be able to get the outcome they want.

- Your cosmetic dentist won’t be able to make your teeth look unnaturally white. This is probably a good thing, though!

- The full results of your treatment won’t be visible until approximately two weeks after the procedure. Keep this in mind if you’re having any other restoration work done that needs to match.

- Cosmetic dentists generally need to replace restorations after bleaching, as they will not match the new tooth color otherwise.

- If you have recessed gums, the yellowish root won’t be easy to bleach.

- If you are nursing or pregnant, you should wait to have your teeth whitened. Swallowed bleach could harm your child.

Children are always hungry and thus appreciative of any snack that comes their way. The tastier and more fun the snack is, the more popular it becomes. However, do not resort to store bought or commercial snacks, which tend to be low in nutrition and unhealthy for your child. Here are some snack ideas:

- Peanut Butter – rich in protein and fibre. Put together funny-shaped sandwiches
- Bake muffins or breads with fruit or vegetable sneaked into them. Banana bread, carrot bars are top favourites.
- Whole-grain cereal – coupled with milk and fruit, you’ve got a winner with vitamins, calcium and fibre.
- Cheese – keeps energy levels high. Serve with whole-wheat crackers or cut out shapes.
- Eggs – serve hardboiled or scrambled. Provides 4 year olds with almost 1/3 of protein requirements for a day
- Yogurt – dress it up with fruit preserves, honey, coloured sprinkles. An excellent source of calcium.
- Pears – rich in fibre, try slicing it or making pear pinwheels.
- Noodles – a fabulous source of complex carbohydrates. Pick your child’s favourite shape and serve with veggies, cooked chicken and tomato sauce.
- Smoothies – kids love smoothies, and most importantly, they are packed with nutrients. Use vanilla yoghurt, orange juice and a banana as the base, then experiment with fruit. This might be the only way to sneak in two to three servings of fruit into your child’s diet.
- Snack – mix together a combination of nuts, pretzels, whole-grain cereal, popcorn and banana chips for a fun, portable snack.

A valuable lesson for kids of all ages is learning how to set reasonable goals that can be attained. With preschoolers, they can set simple goals with adults, and these can be drawn instead of written. It is important that kids set goals periodically throughout the year, and checked on its progress. They should also practise eliminating goals that are no longer applicable to them.

Children learn best by example – so set some goals for yourself and show your children how to set a few simple goals for themselves. Here are a few things to keep in mind when helping your children set goals:

” Take care when suggesting deadlines. For children, two weeks sometimes seems like an impossibly long time. Take into account the age of your child when talking to him about timelines.
” Help your children write their goals down, or if they are very small, let them draw it. Get them to also write down why this is important to them and what it will look like when it’s attained.
” Allow your children to come up with their own goals. If you must make suggestions, take into consideration their age and interests and especially the size of the goals. Kids need to see progress every day, so break down their goal into mini-goals.
” Help your child with his goal, but don’t take it over for him. Show interest and support, but don’t do it all for him.
” Set a goal or two for yourself as well, and work on it with your children side-by-side.

Kids love taking pictures, and a kiddie digital camera is a great idea for a gift. It is a great way to save pictures taken by your children and you can email their pictures to friends and family, and even post them up on a website.

A kids’ digital camera is fantastic because you do not need to spend money on film and developing pictures. You can choose the best ones and delete the rest. These cameras are ideal to keep your children occupied on trips and family outings or even for them to play with around the house.

A few things to look into when buying a kid’s digital camera:
” Expandable Memory – without expandable memory, the kids’ digital camera will allow only around 15 pictures. This is not so great, especially for the little owner of the camera. Check that the features list includes ‘expandable memory’ or ‘memory card’.
” Flash – this is a ‘must-have’ for indoor shots, otherwise, they will turn out pretty dark.
” USB Connection – don’t buy a kids’ digital camera with a serial connection. This makes your transferring process very slow. Instead, look for a camera with a USB connection.
” Megapixels – if the kids’ digital camera is less than on megapixel, then be prepared for low picture quality and blurry images. These will not look very good when printed out or developed.
” Viewfinder – try to buy a kids’ camera with a viewfinder. Kids love looking at the pictures they’ve taken. How many times have you taken pictures with kids, followed by a chorus of ‘can I see?’

Kids’ birthday invitations must be innovative and fun. The place to look for inspiration is online. You can easily delve into a wide range of ideas, designs, colors and fun themes. Some websites even let you design invitations online, which you can subsequently get printed, or the option of ordering pre-made cards is also available.

The invitation cards can have your kid’s favorite cartoon characters, animals or whatever they like. Lots of kids find receiving online cards a novelty, thus making this a popular option. E-cards can be personalized, and also feature cool animations, giving invitees a feel of the theme. If on a low budget, opt for the free e-cards. It’s also a great way to cut costs on postage and delivery.

Kids love getting anything with their name on it. So put on your thinking cap and come up with creative ways to invite the little guests for the party. It doesn’t have to be the standard invitation. If you have already settled on a theme, choose a willing friend to dress up in a costume matching the theme, to personally invite the little ones over for the birthday party.

If you do opt to print the invites, remember, they can get expensive depending on the design and number of colors. Instead, try your hand at designing them, or let your child help you. Not only will they stand out, they’ll be a precious part of the birthday memories you share with your little one.