As a parent, the nutritional needs of your baby or toddler are obviously a priority, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the amount of differing information out there. The food a child eats in their early years can influence their dietary habits later in life, so it’s important to instill good habits and a healthy relationship with food from an early age. But lots of times parents come up against lots of challenges when it comes to getting their children to eat healthy. It is important for parents to make small changes rather than big changes and remember to be patient! Positive encouragement is key! Telling the child that they are doing great and getting so big and strong will encourage the child. Avoid any negativity when it comes to feeding time. Try not to overwhelm children too much or pressure them into eating food.  This will give them a negative outlook on food. Here are some tips that might help: Avoid children grazing and drinking juices thro...

It is normal for every parent to have periods of hyper activity of their children and some moments when you have to tell your kid to slow down, this happen when they are excited or have high energy, but if they are always hyper active, always moving and cannot focus on certain activity this should raise your suspicion that they may have something abnormal. Hyper activity is a cardinal sign of what is called (attention deficient hyperactivity disorder) or ADHD.  What is ADHD? The signs of ADHD are hard to miss and they are present all the time, and they always bring negative comments and annoyed feeling against the child and if you do not know what is really going on you may think that your child is acting and misbehaves and this may let you think that you have to punish him in any way and this will make it worse. Here are some behaviors that are common with hyperactivity: • Talks almost constantly and frequently interrupts others.  • Moves from place...

SHOCKING FACT:        To understand the importance of this article let me give you one piece of information that will surprise you, as per the UNICEF: not more than 35% of world wide population follow the correct hand washing hygiene and not more than 65% practice any hand washing habits, and if we could increase this percentage it will reduce the rate of mortality due to infectious diseases by around one third!   WHY TO WASH: To realize the importance of teaching our children how to wash their hands and build this habit it is enough to know that around 80% of communicable diseases are transmitted by touch.    Try to imagine what your child’s hands touch throughout his daily activities starting from his own face, nose, and eyes to the floor, walls and toilet seats passing by his food and drinks. (Please note that touching does not include touching intact skin, it is not person to person contact).  WHEN TO WAS...

The society around us is changing day by day and with this our children are also changing. Change in the sense that they are becoming more attentive. In order to accommodate ourselves with these changes there is a need to develop better communication skills with the people living around us and with our children.  Communication requires numerous skills, however one of the most important skills is listening. As parents we need to use our best listening skills to teach our children about how to become effective communicators. Listening is the most vital component of communication. Listening skills are basically composed of two parts:    1) Non Verbal skills    2) Verbal skills ·          NON VERBAL SKILLS: - This is a kind of mute conversation between the speaker and the listener. This skill can be developed in the following ways: a.) PAYING FULL ATTENTION TO OUR CHILD: - Whatever he/she is try...

For every one of us that has a child in our care whether it is us as teachers, parents, nannies or caregivers it is important to use positive language with each child rather than negative language, example: “Don’t pick your nose” use “Would you wipe your nose with this tissue” “Stop running!” use “Can we use our walking feet please” “That is very bold/naughty” use “That’s not very nice, is it? (explain why the behaviour is not nice). The use of positive language will give children a sense of achievement and doing right rather than feelings of guilt or not being able to do something correctly. Hence why I think it is important to put a positive aspect on everything even when we are speaking to and correcting children. We all know it can get a little frustrating at times but the important thing to remember is to stay as calm and positive as possible.  Anyone who is caring for a child is a teacher and role model for that child. They learn from us adults and t...