Tips on Parenting

Drug testing is quickly becoming the center of mainstream society. It’s no longer just for job seekers, athletes, and military personnel; it’s for students and more importantly your children. Drug use among teen has been a problem for decades. You remember the commercial, don’t you? “This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?” Now parents are school administrators alike are asking questions and getting answers.

Drug testing is becoming commonplace on high school campuses and detection devices are marketed directly toward worried parents. According to the Adolescent Substance Abuse Knowledge Base (ASK), drug use among teens is more prevalent than you think. 47.2% of students have used marijuana in their lifetime, 30.2% of students have been offered, sold, or given an illegal drug, and 32.2% of students drank alcohol (more than a few sips) before the age of 13. But your teen is safe, right? Your child is a model student and the only time they close their bedroom door is after they say goodnight. No parent should expect the worst of their children, but there are signs that point to what can be a serious problem.

The signs of drug use can range from dramatic to just a bit unusual. One red flag is a drastic drop in your child’s grades. If you child is an honor roll student and is suddenly bring home bad grades, you may want to start watching their behavior more closely. Mood changes can also be a sign of drug use. Teen and moody are thought of as synonymous, but crying outbursts and bouts of depression are not normal. Other signals are secretive behavior such as locking the bedroom door, unusual sleeping habits, and a sudden change in friends. If your teen is exhibiting any of these behaviors, you may want to have them tested for drugs.

Isn’t drug testing an invasion of my child’s privacy? What if my teen isn’t using drugs and withdraws from me even more? You have right to know what you’re dealing with and having your teen tested for drugs will let them know that you’re serious about their health and welfare. Where will you get them tested? Will they go willingly? Do any of these home tests really work? You can answer all of your questions with one solution – USA Mobile Drug Testing. They are the fastest growing, completely mobile drug testing company in the nation. They administer drug testing on-site whether it’s at a business or your home. Results are returned within 24 hours. In a radio interview with host Tim Doctor of Grand Rapids’ News Talk 1340 WJRW, local franchise owners Brandon and Corey Kantola address the issue of teen drug use. They urge parents to call them for more information on drug testing. They have no problem with coming to your home to perform a drug test. This is the same service you can expect from any USAMDT franchise across the country.

Don’t just ignore the problem. Your children are your most valuable possession. You need to let them know that you’re serious about their welfare and only want the best for their lives. Know the truth by giving them the test that can save their lives.

How many more toys does the little one need? Before you answer, consider that toys do much more than entertain. They educate, stimulate the development of perception and cognition, and may help build muscle strength and control. And, of course, amusement shouldn’t be scoffed at, either. A happy baby is a healthy baby.

The range of educational toys that also entertain little ones is endless. Baby Einstein books are everywhere. Others encourage exploring shapes and sounds. That musical toy that you hear as just a noisemaker is actually helping the baby associate a chosen movement with the creation of a particular sound.

Fitting shaped blocks through the right size hole may seem like just a game. But at the same time the baby is amusing him or herself it’s learning that some things fit and others don’t. That ability connects later to learning the alphabet and words where some things ‘fit’ and others don’t.

Don’t overlook the need for a sheer physical outlet, as well. As any parent can testify, babies have lots of energy that just can’t be suppressed. They touch, they explore, they push and prod. That’s helping them develop muscle control, fine-tuning hand and eye coordination, and more. It’s also a sheer joy for the little ones to see what happens when they bat that mobile to make it squawk and spin.

Even dolls are more than just ‘playthings’. If they talk, the baby is learning about human sounds and what they mean. If they’re dressing the doll, the baby learns in a different way how some things fit and others don’t. They also learn that some things can break or tear. Valuable lessons while they enjoy the process.

Don’t forget that all those toys have to have a place to live.

Toy chests come in a range of styles that can blend right in with any nursery decor or childhood interest. The little farmhouse toy chest can be populated with farm animals that remind them of the petting zoo. A stylish mahogany or beechwood chest is perfect for that rich-looking design you spent months imagining during pregnancy.

Develop your child’s interest in baseball at an early age, while you integrate the toy chest into the rest of the furniture and decorations. Or, select the princess carriage toy chest and turn a mundane storage box into a wonderland full of treasures. Choose the circus design and watch your child’s delight in animals grow starting right from those early months.

Education, development and sheer fun are all part of contemporary toy and toy chest collections. Made of durable materials that are safe and stylish, the baby won’t be the only one who is happy with the choices.

New parents may claim that there is no joy greater than that of bringing a new life into the world. Indeed it seems that many parents-to-be get very excited at the news of their pregnancies and begin preparing for the day when their own babies will be born. This preparation includes many details like as baby showers, special labor-training classes, and many trips to the doctor as mothers learn how to take care of their babies and themselves.

One of the most important preparation activities, and one that brings much excitement to the parents-to-be is the design of the nursery. Many parents have a room or an area designated where a crib and changing table can be set up to give the new addition to your family the space he or she needs upon arrival. Nurseries are usually decorated with soft colors and scenes that will be soothing to mother and baby alike.

One way to create this soothing atmosphere is to paint the walls and create murals on them, and many parents do exactly that. However, there is a method to do so without nearly as much effort or time as it would take to hand-paint such creations, and that is by using nursery wall murals to create colorful scenes for the new baby’s nursery.

As magical as it all sounds, many parents have to deal with the realities of budgets and responsibilities. Wall murals can help meet the needs of any budget, and are easily designed and ordered so that parents can spend their time on all of the other preparations that need to be made for the arrival of a new infant. There is a large variety of image options available as well as the option to use your own images to help create the relaxing and soothing environment parents seek for their nursery rooms.

To give an example of how just one mural could be used to spruce up an entire room, the parents could paint the room a color they wanted (let’s say they used pink for their expected baby girl) and then use a wall mural with a scene such as soft pink-tinted clouds or butterflies or even lollipops on it on one wall. Because these murals can be custom-designed, the possibilities are limited only to the creativity and imagination of the scene creators.

These wall murals are available in any size and can start at under $200 for a small wall. Customizable sizing is available so that new parents can measure out spaces that do not fit the standard sizes and special-order murals to fit them. Two options are available for the murals; adhesive-backed and non-adhesive backed.

Unlike most manufacturers, the murals from Create My Scene are not delivered as multiple panels, so you won’t have to worry about seams. Paper covers the back, and once peeled off, reveals the adhesive that will hold the mural to the wall. Adhesive-backed murals are not reusable and their ease-of-installation is rated as “moderately difficult.”

Non-adhesive backed murals do not have adhesive on their backs, and thus are removable and reusable, so they can be moved anywhere that the parents choose even after having been installed. They are also shipped as a single panel, and their ease-of-use is rated as “easy.”

With all of the options available, the possibilities are literally endless for parents looking to create a magical nursery for themselves and their newborns to enjoy for many years to come.

Going to school can be a social minefield. Your child is there to learn but school is where they spend the majority of their day so they will have to learn to interact with other kids. Part of the social scene can include bullying. The newest element of this distasteful act is called cyber bullying.

Cyber bullying is the use of online tools to harass someone. The harassment can be in the form of pornographic material, threatening messages, hate crimes and impersonating another just to name a few. Cyber bullying is conducted through websites, emails, IM messages and chat rooms. The idea is to terrorize another person and harm them with or without laying a finger on them.

This form of torture has become a real concern. It is bad enough when kids get pushed around in school by people who don’t like them or who want to pick on them for no reason. Online, the audience is much wider. Someone who doesn’t even know your child could participate in the harassment and slander their good name. As a parent, you are not powerless. You know your child better than anyone so use that to your advantage when it comes to cyber bullying. Here are some tips to help:

1. Talk to your child often. Staying in constant communication with your child alerts you when something changes in their behavior. A happy outgoing child who is now withdrawn has something going on. Talk to them about cyber bullying and let them know they can confide in you about anything.
2. Keep threatening messages. If your child does become a victim of cyber bullying, a record of the messages is evidence for future use. Your ISP can trace the messages to see where they originated. For most ISPs, explicit or threatening messages are against their operating policies and they either don’t allow them to be sent in the first place or keep very close watch for them.
3. Teach your child how to deal with the situation. First of all, don’t respond to the messages. It will only provoke the bully. Getting into a fight is not going to solve the problem either. Ask your child if they know what started the situation. A counselor could help your child to deal with the harassment. Don’t forget to be there for your child because as you know a parent’s love and support does make a huge difference in any situation, especially a negative one.
4. Call the police. When the harassment takes on a threatening tone or involves pornography, get the police involved. They can use their resources to find the offending person. Even if they can’t nail down the person who originated the messages, they can trace them to a household and investigate.
5. Don’t let your child become a part of the problem. Kids think that talking bad about someone online is all in good fun and harmless but there is always someone on the receiving end who isn’t having a good time. Discuss the effects of cyber bullying and the consequences if you are caught doing it.

Cyber bullying is a very real threat to kids. It can destroy lives. Learn to handle the situation with your child and take precautions to prevent it as much as possible.

Most child development professionals, following a study by Thomas and Chess in the 1950s, hold that temperament is inborn. Personality, by contrast, is influenced by environment and self-development.

The characteristics of temperament – nine categories, including Activity Level, Sensitivity, Adaptability, and others – are sometimes regarded by parents as a source of frustration, since they are inborn and therefore not subject to much change.
 
But the fact that inborn traits are stable can work to the parents’ advantage. Individual humans are so complex and varied that it can be difficult to develop effective strategies for healthy child development. The existence of inborn traits, however, can help parents by providing an identifiable pattern on which to base their guidance.

The first important element in any parenting strategy is objectivity. That’s a difficult status to achieve given the enormous importance and value of the child, but much frustration can be avoided by making the attempt. But objectivity does not mean emotional or value neutrality. It simply means honestly assessing the facts. Evaluation of those facts, and deciding what actions to take is a later step.

Temperament is one area where objectivity is easier to achieve, since a variety of tests exist to help measure its dimensions. Such tests are typically a mix of questionnaire, interview and observation of both parent and child. Even an Internet questionnaire can represent a good first start.

Knowing whether your child is inherently more active, more easily distracted, exhibits a higher intensity of emotional expression, and so forth is a good first step to understanding his or her nature. Parents would do well to test and analyze their own temperaments, as well. Some temperaments mix better than others.

Beyond the inborn characteristics of temperament lies the vast realm of personality.

Personality is even more complex than temperament, and ideas about it correspondingly more controversial. Theories abound about what shapes it and to what degree – environment, heredity, self-development. Added to the mix are the many cultural factors around the world that differ with regard to parenting approach. Values, both individual and social, make an objective assessment much more difficult.

Even so, non-professionals can readily recognize different personality types. Parents rapidly gain valuable experience in assessing and dealing with the personality of his or her own child, especially when the child is not the first.

That experience should not be too lightly dismissed, even in the face of a bewildering array of professional tests, theories and advice. Good science requires taking seriously experimental data, whatever theory the parent may be exposed to or inclined to favor.

Many parents are surprised to find that one child is so different from the other. They often wonder how this could be and what could be attributed to their own parenting. Parents rest easier when they know that some inborn features are just that, and can easily differ from one child to the next.

Knowing the actual nature of your child is the first step toward developing a sound parenting strategy. The results are less frustrated parents and healthier children.

Any parent knows without being told that babies have a lot of energy. They may sleep a lot of the day. (If you’re lucky!) But when they are awake, they’re really awake. Most parents describe it as having an ‘Off’ switch and an ‘On’ switch, with no grades in between. Rather than fight nature, take advantage of it. Buy an activity gym.

Activity gyms offer the chance to work off that energy in a dozen ways. They provide several different ‘stations’ to exercise eye-hand coordination, build arm and leg strength, and – most importantly – exercise that developing mind.

Strength and coordination aren’t just for teen or adult jocks. Babies are developing fast. Their bones are hardening and their young muscles are growing to help them grip, stand and swivel. All those basic movements and many more are essential to good physical health. Even apart from muscular development, that activity helps keep all their organ systems in good shape, just as it does for adults.

At the same time, a good activity gym is a great learning toy. With knobs to twist, mobiles to move, wheels to turn and other features the baby is learning to distinguish and manipulate. That helps the mind recognize differences between, say, a push-pull and a rotation. They’re also learning different shapes and colors. All those are clues to how things behave in the world they are so eagerly exploring.

Picture, for example, a 5-in-1 adjustable gym.

Stage 1 has colorful toys to bat and a motion activated kick pad. Great for eye-hand coordination and observing how things move when they’re manipulated. Stage 2 offers electronic lights and sounds operated by push buttons. That’s an outstanding way to develop sight and hearing, and to grow the mind when it associates movement with them. Stage 3 has a stand up bar that is ideal for those just learning to stand. Safe and practical.

But it’s Stage 4 and Stage 5 that offer something really unique. Here, the baby will find a play table that provides art projects, games and an easel. All are really safe and help the baby develop that latent artistic ability. Even for future athletes that’s incredibly important. Recognizing colors, manipulating shapes and more is tremendously helpful for developing the senses.

A Kicks and Drive gym can be of great help and great fun for your baby in other ways. With a steering wheel to turn, they learn how to make a basic movement that will benefit them right away and forever. Hanging mobiles entertain while they provide shapes to distinguish. Rollers offer still another type of movement that brings a smile as it helps that young mind grow.

Even something as relatively simple as an Animal Friends Musical Gym can be a big value to a little baby (and parent!). With a safe, comfortable pad decorated with cartoon animals, the baby feels good while they experience and explore. Dangling stuffed multi-colored animals amuse the little one while they offer a chance to make them move.

The values of activity gyms for growing babies are many and more important than you might have suspected. Entertainment and learning and exercise all work in coordination to aid your baby’s growth in every dimension.