Editorial Comment: We have just finished potty training our son and are looking forward to the challenges of training our newborn in a few years. Parenting is not easy and knowing how difficult this task can be, so we will be devoting a few articles to potty training. Let us know if they are useful. For us, we used many of the techniques below. It is important not to get made or upset if the child has an accident. We also resorted to bribary along with encouragement. Either a gummy bear or a crabby patty gummy for a real good job! One thing that helped also was peer pressure. Our son really started making progress at the pre pre school he was going to. We built on that success at home by a lot of praise when he went as to what a big boy he was becomming. Julie

There comes a time in every family’s life when it is time to potty train. There are as many ways to go about this as there are families in the world. How you go about the process should be molded to fit the needs of your family and especially your toddler. In fact, it will probably seem as if everyone you know is trying to give you a potty training tip.

Read More

Potty training boys can be a challenge over girls, so it is important to be very patient with your young man and provide a great deal of encouragement. A child should never be pushed when it comes to potty training because it could easily backfire and take twice as long. Read More

Parents typically experience different emotional states including happiness, anger and sometimes frustration during their child’s potty training process. However, it is good to know that for the child, the feelings can be even stronger! If you learn to understand it, your road to successful potty training will be shorter.

For the child, this learning experience is a nightmare! Right at the moment they are having fun and enjoying themselves with their favorite toy, they have to deal with a process which is anything but enjoyable!

What Does The Child Believe?

Read More

Without a doubt, kids seem to change very fast. There is always a new challenge, and as parents we need to understand the phases our children go through, and to realize that we need to change our parenting styles to the situation. Parenting a child means being adaptable to the many changes each child goes through as they begin to develop and mature. Skills need to be changed and adapted as the child grows, matures, and explores new territories. There are some phases of development that each child should go through to be able to advance to the next level. It is unavoidable that sometimes this will get them into trouble. As a child grows they go from being bubbly, determined, and cautious to sassy, bossy, impulsive, and defiant. What a challenge it is to channel these energies in a positive direction. The same stubbornness that keeps your child in trouble is also the stubbornness that gives them the drive to master a new talent. Parents sometimes can have a hard time curbing their stubbornness without stunting their development.

Read More

By Julie Baumgardner

Karen’s son lied about his homework, so she grounded him from weekend activities. Her son was scheduled to be with his dad that weekend so she called her ex to ask him to honor the grounding. He refused, saying that was his only time with his son and he wasn’t obligated to fulfill her decisions. Karen was furious. 

Was Karen right to ask her ex to do this? Was her ex wrong not to honor her wishes? 

“The ultimate goal is to have Karen and Ted strive to enforce similar rules and cooperate regarding the children,” said Ron Deal, author of The Smart Stepfamily. “If you can achieve this level of cooperation, terrific, but the reality is, in many instances, they aren’t there. So, what we work toward is each household being autonomous, but sharing the responsibility for the children. Co-parenting does not mean sharing all decisions about the children or that either home is accountable to the other for their choices, rules or standards.” 

Read More

Choosing a pet for your child is a very important decision that will last for many years. Some pets live ten to twenty years or longer, so the pet you choose today may become a lifelong friend as the child grows. Also, having a pet is a great way to teach your child responsibility.

What type of pet you choose for your child will depend on a variety of factors. How old the child currently is plays a role in your choice of pets, as does where you live, how much room you have, and how much time you as parents have too.

You see, when a child is still somewhat young, they won’t be able to take care of most pets completely on their own. It’s up to the parents to teach the children how to care for and love pets, and parents usually need to do a lot of the work themselves while their children are still young. So the amount of time you, as the parents, has available to devote towards the pet care, and the teaching of both pet and child will be an important part of choosing the proper pet for your child.

Read More

Going to your web browser and typing in the term parenting information and you’ll get a ton of responses of every kind and color. Go to the library and look up “parenting information” in the catalog and you’ll get hundreds of books on every possible aspect of parenting. With all this information, how do you sort it out and find the parenting information you need? Read More

Disipline is becoming a very controversial topic, especially with proposals in some states making spanking illegal and equating it to child abuse. Thats a whole debate for a seperate article. This article will explore alternatives to this type of discipline, alternatives that have worked very well for my family. Parenting effectively can be one of the hardest task any person can undertake, and yet many parents are quite oblivious when it comes to how to go about instilling discipline into their children. There are a vast amount of toddler discipline approaches which abound in our modern times, and many contain very helpful and important information. It is important to approach your particular child as a unique individual while at the same time laying the ground rules of who is actually “in charge” in the home. Children learn at a very young age how to manipulate and control their parents in order to get their way in a situation. Therefore, taking care of toddler discipline while the child is still quite young is a very important step to a child’s future life and well-being. Read More

Best Websites for Parents

Parenting can be a tough job, and most of us parents are grateful for all the help and advice we can get. How lucky are we to have the internet as a parenting resource in addition to our friends, family, books, and other helps! But the internet can be a little overwhelming too. Google “parenting” and you get 76,600,000 hits. Which websites have the information you need? Below are links to some of the best parenting websites out there. Here are our top picks. As we find or hear about more great ones we will add it to the list, so stop back. Now here is the list:

Read More

Is you child potty trained but still wets the bed at night? Did you know that bedwetting is hereditary? So far we are lucky with our children since I had that problem as a child. So, okay, you are not the only one who does not know is possibly embarrassed by this truth. However, thankfully the bed wetting sleep disorder is curable and very rarely crosses the age of 10 years of age. In only about two percent of all the bed wetting sleep disorder cases, the patient continues this habit into adulthood. Read More

Parenting carries some heavy responsibilities. The next time you gaze into your eager toddler’s eyes, think about this: You are your child’s hero. 

Read More

With summer almost here, many families are planning a family getaway. Traveling with kids can be a lot of fun, but it can also be a bit trying for parents, particularly when the kids are small. Small children often have very short attention spans, and they’re not able to become absorbed in reading a book for instance, to while away several hours of a trip. Trips are hard on kids of all ages, because most kids want to move around and do fun things. Smaller kids have the most difficult time with traveling though, because on short hour can seem like a whole day to them. So keeping them occupied while traveling can be a challenge.

There are many things you can do to help make traveling with kids a more enjoyable experience though. Some things work well for smaller children, while others are usually best for kids a little older. Most of the techniques we cover here are for traveling with kids in a car, but some of the tips can be used for air travel, trains or buses too.

Read More

Changing bad behavior in children is every parents challenge. Through positive parenting, researchers at the University of Canberra are claiming just this. In a recent article on the Monitor: "Being a parent is one of the most difficult and challenging roles a person can perform, yet parents do it with no training and little guidance," psychologist Dr Angela White said.

Out of the reseach at the University of Canberra comes strategies on how to build a more positive relationship with your child. They teach the use of natural and logical consequences as discipline in order to increase responsibility and help relieve the stress we as parents have. It is also very important to realize the the importance that self esteem plays in a child. They teach ways to minimize stress and increase enjoyment as a parent.

While parents in other parts of the world may not be able to directly benefit today, we have hope in the future this research will be published for parents around the world to take advantage of. Here at More4kids we will keep a close eye on this research program out of the University of Canberra.

Posting Search Tags: Parenting Baby

by Patricia Hughes

Read More

As a parent, do you take for granted, like I did, that children will automatically listen to you? I learned some wonderful tips for coaching children to listen from a savvy veteran teacher who took me under her wing. When she showed me how to control a rowdy class of twenty-five first graders, I was determined to try the same techniques at home. Teaching children to listen actively involves all of their senses and engages their attention to their world.

Read More