Parenting Blog

Toys are objects of fun as well as learning and activity for kids of all ages. Toys keep the attention of children, allowing parents/guardians to tend to their house chores. At the same time, nicely designed toys enhance the perceptual abilities of children, allowing them to grow sooner and better. If you are the parent/guardian of a kid ranging in age from a few weeks to 4 years of age, you may well be interested in buying the most entertaining toys for your child, like the popular ones described here.

Musical Lights and Sound Gyms

New born babies have the most pleasurable fun with these fantastic, colorful gyms that play continuous music and light, when switched on, as the child lies down on his/her back and watches the gym overhead. The best kinds of these ‘lights and sound gyms’ run with alkaline batteries and start playing sounds and lights when a baby reaches out to touch it. This feedback design of the gym is ideal for giving the infant essential stimulation for acting in the earliest days of his/her life.

Activity Walkers

The perfect toys for fun and healthy growth of toddlers are the activity walkers.  These are ideal for kids ranging in age from 9 months to about 3 years. They provide great support for younger children who are about to take their first steps with confidence. For those older than one year, activity walkers serve to steady their pace. There is room for carrying the kid’s toys in the walker and the walker’s frame also carries colorful balls, figures of animals, and other features of interest to the child.    

Activity Tables

Activity tables remain unsurpassed toys in nourishing the child’s intellectual abilities. In brightly colored designs and equipped with enjoyable sounds, children ranging in age from half a year (6 months) to 3 years learn about alphabets, numbers, colors, textures, words, and a number of other things. The activity table is the best teacher for a child’s early academics with fun.

Ready Steady Riders

Babies ranging in age from one to 3 years need to get moving about for better physical health as wholesome growth. Also, they can get more confidence by managing the act of ‘steering’. This is best achieved with Ready Steady Riders designed by manufacturers of parenting products like Fisher-Price. With their steers designed into colorful fantastic figures, usually of animals and cartoon figures, these riders are the toddler’s first adventures in riding. And yes, they allow the kid to carry his/her feeder and toys along on the fun ride.  

In our modern urban societies, particularly of the developed west, teenage kids are rarely seen hanging out with parents or guardians. After the age of 12 (sometimes even younger), most of the kids feel like losing their independence or freedom by going out with their parents for shopping. Being seen with parents brings them near mortification, especially when seen in their parents’ company by friends or classmates. And yet shopping together yields a good quality of ‘social glue’ to the relationship of parents and kids in their early teens.       

Shopping together gives parents and kids an opportunity to better understand each other. The choices of growing kids become better known to the parent/guardian who develops a respect for the child’s choices and openness to letting the young people choose for themselves. Kids, on the other hand, learn to count on their parents/guardians and approve their company as helpful and supportive while they decide for themselves. Now when the parents no more come to tell a bedtime story, shopping together gives parents and kids extra time for familial bonding.

Some parents/guardians may well find shopping together with teenage kids rather tough. Kids may make a choice that is quite egregious and may even insist on it; say, for example, a questionable garment selected by a young girl; or a very expensive sports item picked by a boy. Here it is time, of course, for some parental guidance without sounding imposing or preachy. Parents should gently explain that the dress is not appropriate so the girl can choose another one of the same color or having the same kind of embellishments but something more acceptable for her age.

Similarly, the parent of the boy, who is after an unaffordable sports item, should ask him softly to choose another item because the one he is after is not affordable at the moment. It is helpful if parents adopt a friendly tone and offer practical assistance in a way that shows parental willingness to allow the kid pursue his choice within budgetary limits. The best way to do so is by saying, ‘Hey, let’s find a better one together.’ In any case, make your shopping experience with the teen kid a pleasant one and it will promote greater trust and respect on both sides.      

 If you are  shopping online then we recommend  Back 2 Basics site, which has great collection of toys and other  kid related items.

By Popular Request -

Parenting articles are in high demand as scores of parent, would-be parents, and guardians acting in the roles of parents search the web daily for information on childcare. Freelance writers, whether or not having personal experience of childcare, can make some part-time income by writing good parenting articles. To write well on parenting topics, a number of things need to be considered. Let’s take a brief look at what a good parenting article is and how you can write one.   
What makes a parenting article good is its appeal to readers. They start with it and will only bother to read through the rest of it if it interests them. So what exactly claims the interest of most readers? Following are some qualities that make a good parenting article.

Usefulness of Information

People usually read articles to get information that can help them solve a certain problem. The information provided in a parenting article should be precise and practically useful. For example, writing an article on child’s health, the writer can list the signs and symptoms of a particular health problem found in children; the cause (or causes) of the problem; available treatment methods, their costs, and possible risks; and various means of preventing the problem in question. Detailed information on one aspect of the problem (signs and symptoms, for example) may be singled out for a single article. However, the article should not end abruptly with the last sign/symptom. It is helpful to provide a more complete source of information, preferably a free online web address for further reading.        

Appropriate Range of Topic

A good parenting article tends to select a topic that is neither too broad so as to create vagueness nor too narrow as to appear irrelevant. The topic should address a problem that is in the common experience of many parents. Selecting ‘Controlling Behavioral Problems of Children’, for example, is too large a topic to be covered in a single article (or even in a dozen of them).  Narrowing it down to ‘Controlling Aggression in Children’ would make a good informative piece. Squeezing it, however, to ‘Controlling Aggression in Eight Year Olds’ would reduce the number of parents who would like to read the piece. The topic of this article will only interest the parents of an eight-year old kid who shows aggressive behavior.

Appropriate Length

Keeping the article long enough to explore the essential points about the topic makes it reader-friendly. A very short article cannot say enough about the topic and fails to be appreciated. An interminably long document, on the other hand, is likely to scare the reader away in its first glance. The appropriate length of the article depends on the particular topic. Generally, it falls in the range of 500 to 1500 words.

Article Title

The first thing a reader looks at, and decides to read further, is the title of the article. Making it snazzy is an important step in attracting the reader’s interest. The title should express the scope of the article as precisely as possible. For example, the title ‘How to Care for an Ill Child’ conveys little about what kind of illness is being mentioned in the article and leaves the reader confused. He/she may not bother to give it a reading. A more catchy title may be ‘How to Give Homecare to An Epileptic Child?’

Language

The language of the article should be easy to understand, free of offensive or abusive terms, and natural. Using jargons (specialized words) that are not in common use baffles the reader and pose difficulty in understanding the meaning of the writing. Offensive language sounds uncivilized and spoils even the best kind information. Artificial language (words and expressions that are highly imaginative and novel in use) makes the writer sound more interested in playing with words than with conveying important information. Errors in language also mar the beauty of the article.

Several other qualities characterize a good parenting article. But the four main qualities mentioned above will usually do to create an appreciable parenting article.        

Prayers are central to biblical parenting because prayers are the primary means of communicating with God and helping children get closer to God. There are various issues about teaching your child to pray and connect with the Lord. Some of the basic points about effective biblical parenting with prayers are described here. 

The main thing that all believing and caring parents need to teach their kids about prayers is the reason behind praying. Since ages, people have indirectly encouraged the idea that prayers are a means of getting gains or success in this world. Kids frequently, in their innocence, ask God for choice things (toys, dresses, sport items etc.) in their prayers. This attitude is not a healthier one from spiritual viewpoint because prayers are meant to tie the human soul with that of the Lord in a spiritual bond. They are not meant for demanding for worldly things and expect God to send them off. Kids should be taught in their early days of prayers that they are praying to God not for worldly gains but for spiritual bonding.

A large number of parents often face the question whether God accepts prayers from a person if he/she is not praying in a defined position i.e. with hands folded and eyes closed. Parents should remember to tell their kids that they need not assume a particular posture in order to help their prayers be heard by God. There is no mention of any particular posture for prayer in the bible. God hears any and all prayers that are offered in pure devotion, love, and humility. Kids can pray anytime, anywhere, and in any posture. However, it is better for them not to let worldly temptations and thoughts go with their prayers. Closing of eyes is in fact an attempt to remove the worldly scenes from before one’s eyes. If a kid can concentrate on the word ‘Lord’ with humility, he/she can pray without closing eyes or folding hands as most people do.             
Also central to biblical parenting is the concept of persistent prayers for the delight of God. The bible teaches that God takes delight in the prayers of the upright but does not accept sacrifice from the wicked. Thus, kids must be taught that they should think and do good in order to delight the Lord with their prayers. Since Lord blesses those who persist in their purity and devotion to Him, persistent prayers not only for one’s self and family but for all friends and all people everywhere, even for your enemies or people who have done you harm. By your prayers, God will wash the evil off those who are its victims and make them see the light of goodness and love. At the same time, God will relive the sufferings of the praying person if he/she prays with a true heart.  

To learn and teach more about prayers in the bible, use the Holy Bible itself as the ultimate source of biblical parenting. Some of the important sections of the bible that teach about prayers include: Jude 1: 20; Mathew 6:9-13; Mathew 5:44; James 5:13; Romans 8:26; Ephesians 6:18; Psalm 66:19; Proverbs 15:8; and Mathew 6:5-6.