Here is another valuable parenting insight that we can use in our homes.
One of the roadblocks to harmony in family life is when siblings act foolishly and end up hurting or offending each other. Foolishness may be demonstrated by teasing and playing around beyond what’s appropriate or wanted. Usually one person wants to stop before the other. Angry words and tears often bring an end to what started out as fun. Incorporating a “Stop Rule” in your family will help children, and parents for that matter, know when to quit.
Even before my son started showing his first tooth at 7 months, I had him use an infant oral brush to take care of his gums. Prior to that, I used to wipe off milk off his mouth and gums with a wet washcloth. It will not just eliminate decay causing bacteria but will also prepare his mouth for the later introduction of toothbrush. I have seen far too plenty of kids all over who have dental caries and end up losing majority of the teeth they have even before they are ready to fall off and have their permanent teeth. I knew from the beginning that I am not going to allow that to happen to my son. This is why I think it is very important that we encourage our children the habits that they form from the beginning.
Our son when he was 9 months old. It took me a while before I found this shot. It was in the Feb 2006 folder. I am really thankful I got all the photos listed by month/year album. Infant oral toothbrushes usually have this stopper that prevents babies getting the brush all the way down their throats. Read the rest of this entry »
As a follow up to a more recent article on Understanding Receptive and Expressive Language in Babies, I hope to share the things we have learned to encourage the development of your child’s language skills. It helped that my husband and I were right from the beginning a team with our desire to become pro active parents. We did not want to just stay in the sidelines and watch our child go with the flow. So far, in our four years, I can only say that we’re happy with the choices that we made.
When you are a brand new mother, there are so many things to learn about your child, one of which is the development of language. When I was a young mother myself, I am one of the guilty ones who bombarded themselves with information about the how-tos of taking care of a newborn. I always had a chart of the normal developmental stages of a child handy. We attended not just childbirth preparation classes but newborn care classes as well. To a degree, I even considered myself ready way before our son was born.
Jeff and I were thrilled over each and every progress our son would show. I remember this video that I took when Jed was a couple of months old. At three months, he was already mimicking the sound of the way we say “I love you” with ease and it was just one of the most unforgettable things.
It was like watching the clock when it came to how I anticipated my son to talk real words. We never encouraged baby talking. From all the studies that we have done, which were always careful to evaluate first, baby talking is not the way to go. Although, no one can really help himself when he’s faced with a baby. We always tend to don our softest voices and even sing-song tones when there is a baby around. But that’s entirely different from baby talking.
Although dogs are not exactly my most favorite thing in the world (it has something to do with the phobia I picked up when I was three), I am beginning to see the advantages of having one. They really can be good guards of your home, if we come to think of it. It can also be my son’s pet. That is actually the primary reason why I may consider. With emphasis on MAY, please. It will really take something for me to agree on us getting one.
This entry is the next installment to the article I wrote here.
The indicators of Autocratic Parenting as defined by Pastor Clem Guillermo during the Parent Talk 101 seminar :
Parent run roughshod over their children
Parents believe they know what is best for all.
Force their ideas on children.
Very critical, demanding, threatening.
Distrustful, manipulative and over-involved.
Daddy or Mommy knows best.
Given that this seminar was focused on teenage kids, I now tend to agree with what was expressed in this particular subject. But it is entirely a different issue if the children concerned are younger children. Babies and toddlers to be exact. My husband and I have believed from the beginning, children (babies and toddlers) do not know any better. This is why they cannot be given the freedom to just do anything they want, whenever they want. Freedom comes with responsibility.
utocratic parenting will not work for teenagers. This is why it is extremely important to parent the child properly during their formative years. Unlike with children in the younger years, reasoning with teenagers is already possible.Given that you have a good relationship with your child. A good relationship is always a non-negotiable if we want our message to go across. Like for instance, we cannot do “spanking” as a form of discipline if we do not have a good relationship with our child. This will result to rebellion.
This entry is the next installment to the article I wrote here.
The indicators of Autocratic Parenting as defined by Pastor Clem Guillermo during the Parent Talk 101 seminar :
*Parent run roughshod over their children
*Parents believe they know what is best for all. Read the rest of this entry »
Mommies very well know how babies and toddlers tend to smell rather sour after a few hours, or even minutes (during extra humid days) after we have given our little cutie pies their baths. I happily report that my son has been sweet smelling practically all day since he started using GIGA baby soap. He would still sweat all right, but nothing like how he used to. I love it so much that I use the soap on his hair too.
The GIGA brand has been a staple in our household since 2005. And I wouldn’t even start telling you about NO ITCH. It magically clears away any trace of itchiness. They both have a permanent place in my dresser. NO PAIN replaced my former pricier Origins’ Peace of Mind. When migraine attacks, my instinct would be is to grab NO PAIN.
I have recommended GIGA to friends and relatives.I remember getting hold of a handful of GIGA products for my bestfriend, Gina who is in London, a few years ago. This is just about the neatest thing so far GIGA has come up with. My baby and I love GIGA’s brand new baby line (baby soap, insect repellant spray, cold rub, baby balm, baby cologne and baby oil) Everything caters to pampering your baby. The cologne is formulated just right, with its own original scent. My son loves it, I do too.
It did not exactly occur to me that Parent Talk 101 was to focus particularly on communication with young adults/teenage children. But that did not get me disappointed. I think it is necessary for parents to be ready way ahead of the actual battle. This is what we did before I gave birth to my son. From learning how to be BabyWise to attending to childbirth classes. These helped us a lot to conceptualize the kind of parents we want to be. It is our first and we knew we had to start right.
Another parenting tip I got from the book Say Goodbye to Whining, Complaining, and Bad Attitudes, In You and Your Kids.  It reminds me to cherish my son and indulge him as we sail together in his world. This is especially hard for me because I work from home.  But it is also part of my commitment.  As important as my job is, my child is more important.  It fills my cup to the brim whenever I see in his eyes that he understands why mama needs to work after spending quality time with him. His eyes will not fail to tell me that his love tank needs replenishing, whenever I get too busy for him.
Here is the excerpt from Dr Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller’s book.
One way to honor our children is to enjoy them with their own interests in mind. You may think that’s pretty easy. After all, you’ve been enjoying your children for years. But many parents, after careful examination, discover that they’re enjoying themselves and inviting their children to join in. Often parents determine the conversation topics, the entertainment choices, or the outing destinations. Parents make choices they think will please their children, but in reality, they’re loving their children in ways that they themselves would like to be loved.
One day when my (Scott) children were young, I told them that they could each have a half hour of my time during which I would play whatever they wanted. Melissa, at four years old, chose playing with dolls. I never realized how long a half hour was! We must have explored everything that one doll could say to another. I also learned that dressing a doll is like trying to put an octopus in a string bag. You just get one part in and something else falls off. I realized then that I often choose to enjoy my children according to my own needs and interests instead of theirs.
Do you know your child’s favorite color, foods, or friends? Many children are willing to join in with their parents’ plans and the family ends up having a lot of fun together. But focusing on a child’s interests and topics of conversation can be a good way to show honor. This is especially important with teens. Listening to their music, allowing them to teach you how to play a computer game, or just having a discussion about something they like offers connecting points that parent/child relationships need. The skill of enjoying children according to their needs and interests is one way of honoring kids and expressing to them that they’re valuable.
* an excerpt from the book Say Goodbye to Whining, Complaining, and Bad Attitudes, In You and Your Kids by Dr Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN.
I officially got back to my 12 hour schedule in doing online tasks since early last week. It has been a while since my schedule dove down to 8 hours a day. So that only means two things: business is picking up and my health might be on the line again. Balance is the key. I have since learned this when I was too keen on taking up a lot of tasks than my body could actually handle. It was when my resistance went down to its all time low last year. Now I know better. Risking my health only means risking my family’s as well. In fact, I turned in earlier than usual last night — before midnight struck.
Free time is not something I usually get my hands on whenever I fancy. Especially now that I will soon get down to a rigid schedule when I start homeschooling our little guy when June comes. It would possibly mean that I would have practically zero time to do other things like watching my favorite tv series. It would be sweet if we have something like Time Warner Digital. Read the rest of this entry »
The issue of family planning in a Christian family is a rather controversial one. There is no passage in the New Testament about the issue of birth control. Obviously, God has left this one issue up to the couple, as long as they do not go against the other commandments. Which brings me to mention that abortion is a no-no. Exodus 20:13 says“Do not murder.” Abortion is killing a human being.
The size of a family is all up to the couple to decide. Although God has given Adam and later Noah (after the Flood), the command to replenish the earth, a few other factors about raising a family should also be considered. Raising a family means getting into a commitment to train up each and every child aright. The ability to provide should also be looked into. A larger family automatically means more tuition and basically more of everything.
If ever a couple decides to have an unlimited number of children is up to them. But they should also get into this with the responsibility that goes with such decision. Read the rest of this entry »
Today is our son’s first time to attend Daily Vacation Bible School (DVBS). The hubby and I thought, he was ready for it and we had him attend the first day. He was thrilled at first but later on got overwhelmed by the loud screaming the other kids were doing during the large group assembly. It was another first for him.
My little guy started having fever Thursday morning. He had fever (38-39 degrees Celsius) for most of the day until the next day at six in the afternoon. No cough and colds, no loss of appetite, still bubbly and playful. So we really can’t call it the flu. We brought him to the Pedia Friday morning just to be told that blood tests will not help because fever was just a day old. So if it was Dengue, the test will not come back positive until at least the third day. Today is the third day and Jed has been fever free for twelve hours until another episode of low grade fever came back again at two in the afternoon.
If it was not for the kid on the next block who had Dengue last month, I wouldn’t be as concerned. We don’t have mosquitoes in our home because of our trusty JML pest shield. We got that to get rid of stray roaches and since I bought it a year ago, it did not just get rid of roaches, but millipedes and mosquitoes as well. It was frustrating that our brand new home was infested with millipedes! Now we hardly use anti-mosquito spray anymore, really. This deserves a separate post altogether.
Going back to this Dengue scare, for non-Filipinos, please know that it is not pronounced as “den-goo” as one website claims. It is pronounced as “deŋ-gē, -ˌgā” . Etymology is American Spanish. But we usually pronounce it with a short “e” – den-g-eh. Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF), mostly found in the tropics, is spread to human with the bite of female aedes mosquitoes. The virus incubates the human body for 2 to 7 days before it leads to fever.
According to my father (which was later reinforced by some health magazine), these dangerous dengue carrier mosquitoes are only active until ten in the morning. Since then, I have not allowed my son to play or bike around the house, even in the garage before 10:00AM. We certainly make sure we do not have stagnant water around us, but still with a neighbor’s grandson across the block having just had his bout with Dengue, we could not be more careful. But a few days back, my son went out to see his grandma and they stayed outside, came back with mosquito bites around the legs.
These past couple of days was spent reading on this scary disease, its symptoms and cure. Symptoms include: fever, headache, severe joint pain and rash. But I also read that toddlers may have non typical symptoms, so that leaves us clueless for now. We are hoping and praying that what Jed has is just viral. The fever that he has been having since are all six to twelve hours apart and are low grade ones.
I have also been making Sweet Potato Tops (Camote Juice) this last couple of days. There have been a lot of articles that have testified on the potency of Camote juice to cure Dengue. So I thought, if it was Dengue that Jed has, then he will be cured in no time. Camote tops juice ups the immune system, which helps the body fight the rapid reduction of the blood platelets.
We are praying that Jed will fully recover soon, whatever this is, his pedia said to hope that it is just viral. He sure is getting better by the day. I am just blessed that it was never hard for me to have him take his juice medicine (whether lemongrass or sweet potato tops). Despite of his fever, he still remains the chatterbox, playful boy, ever cooperative with the juices and paracetamol medications that I give him. His appetite remains the same.
As I said in this Plurk page, I refuse to worry and am confident that God will heal my cutie pie real soon. Thank you so much for those who prayed with us, especially our church family in SBC-Makati.
