Today's Parent | Parenting Resources… Articles, Advice, Help & Tips

If your child ever joins the millions who suffer from allergies, you should know that reducing contact with airborne allergens such as dust and pollen can help prevent the onset of symptoms.

Here are steps you can take to help your child breathe easier:

• Keep windows closed in the car and at home and limit outdoor activities, especially when the pollen count is high.

• Take a bath or shower before bed to help remove the allergens that may have collected on clothing throughout the day.

• Vacuum the carpet and floors throughout the home on a regular basis and consider using a vacuum with a HEPA filter. Read More

Nothing makes moms happier than seeing her kids enjoy great food. This Mother’s Day, give mom the ultimate experience of preparing meals with her children. Turn up the fun in family dinners by letting kids help mom make meals using the recipes in the Mom and Me Cookbook!

POTATO MICE

You will need: radishes, cherry tomatoes, raisins, green onions, chives, salt and pepper, 4 potatoes, ½ cup grated cheese, 1/3 cup milk, 2 tbs butter

How to make them:

1. Wash the potatoes and pat them dry. Prick the skins with a fork and put the potatoes on a baking sheet. Brush them all over with oil.

2. Bake the potatoes until they are soft. Medium-sized potatoes take about one hour in an oven preheated to 400F

3. Cool enough to handle? Then cut off the tops and carefully scoop out the soft potato centers. You can throw away the tops (or eat them)

4. Mash the soft centers with the butter, milk, three quarters of the cheese, salt and pepper. Then put the mixture into the potato skin.

5. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on the potatoes and cook under the broiler for a few minutes until golden

6. Make a nose and whiskers with half a tomato held in place with a toothpick and chives tucked behind it

7. Finish decorating with raisin eyes, radish ears, and green onion tails. Read More

Children learn violence in their homes and in their schools from adults whose best intentions are to train them to be obedient, law-abiding citizens. To that end, corporal punishment has been used on children in many societies for hundreds of years.

Attitudes about corporal punishment are strong but they are finally beginning to change. Over one hundred countries throughout the world have banned the use of corporal punishment in schools and twenty-four countries have banned it at home as well. Sometimes it takes enacting laws to change people’s belief systems, especially when re-education is provided to young people. For example, recognizing the humanitarian and civil rights of African-Americans required changing laws and as a result great progress has been made in the last sixty years.

Governments can no longer ignore the evidence that hitting children teaches them to be aggressive and violent. The research is unequivocal in showing the long-term negative effects of spanking and hitting children. Some of these effects include increased child aggression, increased adult aggression, increased child delinquent and antisocial behavior just to name a few.

How does this apply to you, the parent, in terms of disciplining your children in the home? Many child development experts agree that hitting children does not teach them right from wrong but rather it makes them obey for the short-term when a parent is present and misbehave when the parent not present. This means we need to have a new understanding of discipline and what we can do to instill a child’s desire to be good. Children love their parents and really do want to please them. When they feel good in their relationship with their parents, when they feel valued and respected, they naturally want to be good. As they grow we can help them develop a well-developed conscience by teaching and modeling rather than relying on punishments. The following quote says it beautifully. Read More

Have you ever wondered how teachers taught before the printing press?  How knowledge was disseminated before books became widely distributed?  From time immemorial, storytelling has been the way a people communicated their history, knowledge, ethics, and culture to future generations.  This long-established method is as valuable now as it was then because not only does storytelling teach in the traditional sense by conveying information, it teaches the whole child.  Storytelling develops children’s imaginations, their language skills, and their minds, instilling self-confidence and a sense of community.

Early Literacy
Many educators, researchers, and storytellers advocate that storytelling can contribute significantly to early literacy development. Significant research has been compiled over the years on the correlation between oral storytelling and literacy and reading comprehension.  Among other benefits, researchers have found that a well-established oral language vocabulary is essential for the development of young children’s written vocabulary.  Also, the rhyming language found in storytelling can contribute to early spelling. Read More