I’m sure that you care about the health of your family. I sure do and I can’t imagine any parent NOT taking this seriously.

So when I saw this article written by Mike Geary, I knew I had to write a quick blog post about it suggesting you read it.

Here’s why this article is so important to read:

It helps you understand the 5 most dangerous condiments that you probably have in your fridge right now. It explains why they are unhealthy (and we shouldn’t feed them to our kids).

But it ALSO shows you 5 alternative HEALTHY condiments that you should use instead.
You might be surprised to see how often soybean oil is used in foods. You know why? It’s because soybeans are the commodity crop used to give cattle protein, along with corn (for carbohydrates). The byproduct of this industrial farming is a lot of excess soybean oil. So food manufacturers feed it to us. Not because it’s healthy, but because it is cheap.

As I read the article this morning I nodded along at every point that the author made. He and I definitely see eye-to-eye on this.

Please take the 2 minutes necessary to read this. You’ll be surprised by what you learn.

Enjoy your children (and your health!)

Chris Thompson

P.S. Make sure you noticed what I mention about soybean oil in the middle of this post. There is a reason it’s in almost every garbage condiment these days, and it has nothing to do with better health.

This weekend was a blast for my family. My wife and I drove the family from Toronto, where we live (Canada’s largest city) to a very small town 5 hours away called Petawawa. We have friends who live up there, and 4 families gathered at their house for a weekend party. We had seven kids in total, ranging from 3-7 years old.

Courtesy QUOI Media (creative commons)

We went sledding at a huge hill overlooking the local golf course. It was probably the best sledding hill I’ve ever been to. My kids didn’t complain once about the hike back up the hill to go for another ride to the bottom. At night on New Year’s Eve, we even got to take them for a horse-led sleigh ride through the woods. We sat on bundles of hay. It was awesome.

Between outdoor fun and indoor fun, the kids were kept very busy. At some point in the weekend one of the adults in our group said, “Wow, the kids are all really well behaved!”

You know why? Because they were not looking for attention from Mom and Dad, and being ignored. They had our attention during the outdoor sledding, and they had each other’s attention when playing in the house. They were all having fun.

Funny thing about how having fun often translates to great behavior …

My oldest daughter cried this weekend – and the reason was she was sad about leaving to drive home this morning. I practice what I preach, and I got down to business by entering her world. I said things to her like, “You’re sad because you don’t want to leave, sweet heart. I know. I don’t want to leave yet either.” I just acknowledged her feelings and continued on with packing up the car. It wasn’t some magical mood-cure for her, but she got over it fast and it was better than getting upset at her. That would have gotten me nowhere.

Anyway, the lesson here is to realize that when kids are busy and having fun, it takes away reasons to misbehave for the purpose of getting attention. So if you’re suffering behavior problems in your house, consider whether or not it might be due to lack of attention that your kids get from you, your spouse, or anyone else. Then see if you can find ways to inject more fun in your lives.

Oh, and that bounce house my friends had in their basement? It was AWESOME. I want to buy the same model but I measured my basement and unfortunately it won’t fit. But I might pick it up for the summer season when it can go in the backyard. This is the exact model they had. Easily fit 4 kids at a time. Easily. The brand is Little Tikes, a well known brand. There is also a larger model available if you have a gigantic house or yard.

Christmas for the little ones just isn’t complete without Santa Claus. This big, old man with the white long beard is pretty much THE symbol of Christmas for kids. Well, that and the presents under the tree, right?

I’ve noticed that a lot of children line up with their parents to sit on Santa’s lap, only to end up crying when they’re face to face with the big man. A bit of this is the parent’s fault. Imagine how scary it is to suddenly sit on a stranger’s lap and hear a loud “Ho! Ho! Ho!”

I saw this article on Yahoo! Shine and thought it would be helpful.

According to Ryan Johnson, there are three ways to introduce toddlers to Santa Claus: books, movies and TV and Dolls and figurines. Here’s an excerpt from Johnson’s article.

Books

As with everything else, there are countless books out there for kids at Christmas. We started reading them last week, and she’s already totally into them. They’re what she goes for now when it’s time to read, and she loves the reindeer, elves, and Christmas trees. There’s one in particular, Christmastime is Here with the LittlePeople, that has a huge photo of Santa on the front, and contains pages and pages of flaps to lift. When she picks up that book, she yells out “Ho Ho Ho!,” knowing that’s Santa’s mantra. She’s able to pick him out on every page, and she gives a big smile when she sees him. However, a one-dimensional picture of Santa that doesn’t make any noise in a book is quite different than the real thing, so we also turn to…

Movies and TV

Like many children out there, my daughter is quite taken with the Sesame Street gang. She’s particularly fond of Elmo and loves to see him on TV. My husband and I both have SesameStreet.org programmed into our favorites on our computers, so we can quickly pull up a short video to give her a quick fix every once in a while. You can find just about any video you’re looking for, whether you’re searching by character or by topic. Learning to count? No problem. Potty training? The Muppets of Sesame Street can help. So, after a quick search, I found a cute little video of Elmo visiting Santa Claus up at the North Pole. Not only is Elmo excited to see Santa, but it goes into the spirit of Christmas and there’s a song to boot. But again, seeing Santa on TV isn’t quite the same thing as when he’s right in front of you, so we’ve also brought out some…

Dolls and Figurines

Unfortunately, the dolls we have around our house have given me an inkling as to what we’re in for when we go see Santa. Last night, we put her to bed and hauled out all of the decorations. We thought it would be fun to get it all done while she was asleep, and then have her walk through the house with everything glowing this morning when she woke up. And it was fun! She loved it and continued through every room with a look of wonder on her face. Until, that is, she spotted the two Santa dolls we have with our respective school logos on their sweaters. These Santas are probably 12 inches tall and are too cute. She took one look at them, furrowed her little brow, and took off running as fast as her little legs would carry her. My hope is that she’ll get used to them the more she sees them. Only time will tell. In the meantime, wish us luck with our visit to Santa. And if we do have the all-too-common photo of a screaming toddler and an exasperated Santa, at least we’ll have a great story to tell for years to come that will embarrass her to no end.

Now, don’t stop at the three suggestions Ryan gave here. These may or may not work on your child, so trying other things will definitely help. If you have already successfully introduced Santa Claus to your child, how did you do it? I’m sure other parents would like to know.

You have to remember to respect your child. If you wait in the mall lineup for 45 minutes only to have your child completely refuse to sit on Santa’s lap – that’s his or her choice. You can’t force him to do it. In fact I suggest prepping your child ahead of time. Ask him if he wants to sit on Santa’s lap. If he says no, don’t push the issue. It may only be Santa, but do you really want your child growing up thinking that he has to go sit on a stranger’s lap when you tell him to?

Last year I found a blog post where an awesome woman had pointed out a whole pile of absolutely free Christmas music available at Amazon.

I emailed the link out to my subscribers and everyone loved having access to it. Hey, you can’t beat free, right? I don’t mind paying for great music, but I’ll always be more than happy to save some money to stuff my kids’ Christmas stockings just a bit more.

Anyway, I just checked this morning and sure enough you can still get a ton of free music for the holiday season.

I sorted the music by price so the free stuff shows up at the top.
Here’s the link to Free Christmas Music

I also noticed something called 25 days of free, which is a free Christmas song every day in December up until the 25th. So you might want to go back daily to grab the current freebie.

I came across an article about a new program called COPE24 that’s being implemented in nearly twenty school districts in Missouri. The program aims to teach teenagers about the stresses of parenting and how to recognize neglect and abuse before they even become parents themselves.

There are different forms of child abuse. These are:

According to a research made by Florida State University Center for Prevention and Early Intervention Policy, children born to young mothers are at a greater risk of being an indicated case of child abuse or neglect and being placed in foster care later. The U.S Department of Health and Human Services has similar findings.

COPE24 works by showing teenagers videos of real-life scenarios (such as that of a father who lost his baby due to shaken baby syndrome), and then they have guided discussion of how to better handle such situations.

I think this is a great program. If you don’t get educated on a topic, you’ll remain ignorant. And there are lots of times when you can probably think back to something you learned and say, “Yeah, that really had an impact on me”.

I’ve always liked the expression, “kids don’t come with instruction manuals”, so programs like COPE24 sound quite helpful.

The numbers of teenage parents are growing everyday – and teenagers are usually not mature enough to understand their own emotions, forget those of a child! So at least if we can’t prevent so many teenage pregnancies maybe we can at least minimize the damage that they can cause.

COPE24 is still on its early stage, and I guess the biggest obstacle right now is how to get through to teenagers. While this sounds like a great program, we all know that parenting is the last thing on a teenager’s mind. It’s very hard to get them to listen to these kinds of messages. I wonder how they’ll deal with low interest among teenagers.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is an organization made up of 60,000 pediatricians committed to the attainment of optimal physical, mental and social health for all infants, children and adolescents.

The organization published a news release recently with the following title:

BABIES AND TODDLERS SHOULD LEARN FROM PLAY, NOT SCREENS

They argue that it’s not a great idea for parents to allow kids to spend so much time watching TV.

Here are some of the key findings from their study:

• Many video programs for infants and toddlers are marketed as “educational,” yet evidence does not support this. Quality programs are educational for children only if they understand the content and context of the video. Studies consistently find that children over 2 typically have this understanding.
• Unstructured play time is more valuable for the developing brain than electronic media. Children learn to think creatively, problem solve, and develop reasoning and motor skills at early ages through unstructured, unplugged play. Free play also teaches them how to entertain themselves.
• Young children learn best from—and need—interaction with humans, not screens.
• Parents who watch TV or videos with their child may add to the child’s understanding, but children learn more from live presentations than from televised ones.
• When parents are watching their own programs, this is “background media” for their children. It distracts the parent and decreases parent-child interaction. Its presence may also interfere with a young child’s learning from play and activities.
• Television viewing around bedtime can cause poor sleep habits and irregular sleep schedules, which can adversely affect mood, behavior and learning.
• Young children with heavy media use are at risk for delays in language development once they start school, but more research is needed as to the reasons.

The report recommends that parents and caregivers:

• Set media limits for their children before age 2, bearing in mind that the AAP discourages media use for this age group. Have a strategy for managing electronic media if they choose to engage their children with it;
• Instead of screens, opt for supervised independent play for infants and young children during times that a parent cannot sit down and actively engage in play with the child. For example, have the child play with nesting cups on the floor nearby while a parent prepares dinner;
• Avoid placing a television set in the child’s bedroom; and
• Recognize that their own media use can have a negative effect on children.

Part of this study says that over 90% of parents said their children (age under 2 years old) watch some form of electronic media. That’s not really much of a shocker. But they also stated how the average time in front of a screen is one to two hours per day. I definitely see this as a problem for the under-2 crowd. Let’s face it. Kids are going to learn a lot more by interacting with other people at this age.

With all the shows packaged for young kids such as Barney, Dora the Explorer and Thomas and Friends, just to name a few, it’s very easy to be swayed into letting our kids watch TV while we go about our daily routines.

Parents, I know how it’s sometimes more convenient to let the television do the babysitting for us, but it really isn’t in the best interests of your child, is it?For our children’s sake, let’s take a break and spend more time with them.

What do you think about the AAP study? Do you believe the numbers? Do you have a problem with the idea of putting a kid that young in front of a screen for up to 2 hours per day?

I was reading Parenting.com today, and when I came across a blog post written by the site’s celebrity blogger Kendra Wilkinson.

For those of you who don’t follow the celeb scene (I don’t, my wife does), Kendra Wilkinson is a star of the E! reality show The Girls Next Door. She’s also married to football player Hank Baskett and mom to toddler Hank Jr. I normally wouldn’t suggest taking parenting advice from a former Playmate, but in this case I think Kendra demonstrates an understanding of parenting that a lot of people don’t understand.

In this post, I Don’t Want to Smother Baby Hank, she says:

“My whole pregnancy I had ideas of what I thought I would be like, but just like my cravings, they changed daily. The one thing I knew for sure was that I was going to be protective—I just didn’t know what that would entail… Once he was born, everything kind of fell into place, and I knew almost immediately I wanted him to be able to go out there and learn on his own and experience life on his own. “

So that’s the setup. But here’s where she brings it home with a really simply story. She couldn’t have put it any better about parenting when she said:

“We can do our best as parents to teach him, but it is up to him to learn. For example, he used to love to play with water; he would sit there and turn the faucet on and off and get the biggest kick out of it. One time the water was pushed to the hot side—not all the way, but still on the hot side. I kept telling him “Hot, Hank, No, Hank, Ouchie.” But I DIDN’T turn it off. I told him why not to touch it. He looked up at me and said, “Hot!” and didn’t touch it. If I had turned the faucet off he probably would have burned his hand at some point because he wouldn’t have known better. I would have prevented the incident instead of teaching him to learn for next time.“

I couldn’t agree more with Kendra on this one. Nothing beats a parent’s love but if you’re truly concerned about your child, you need to let him learn things on his own. It’s a big world out there, and you have to teach your child to survive rather than to always protect him from it. After all, you know you can’t always be there.

Your child will fall down, get cut, get hurt, deal with social issues, and have disagreements with others. Our role is to teach him how to overcome the pain on his own, or learn form the mistakes on his own. We can coach our children, but not do everything for them.

Today is Halloween. There are lots of excited kids everywhere, naturally. I happened to hear 4-year old child ask her mom today, “Mommy can I wear my costume tomorrow?”

The mother replied, “No honey – it’s Halloween today. Tomorrow it’s over.”

But the best part was what happened next. This little girl looks right up at her mother and said, “But Mommy, you said I could wear my costume whenever I want!”

Hmmm – good point isn’t it?

I think the mother agreed. Because she started to back pedal. She said, “Yes, I did say that. I meant you can wear your costume at home whenever you want. You can play dressup with it after Halloween is over”.

This cute little girl seemed happy enough with that answer. But it reminded me that parents often say “No!” without thinking about it at all. Often, saying no to your child is an attempt to force your view of the world on the child.

Why we say “no”

If you are going to say “no” to your child for something, it should be for a valid reason. Feeling that the child might look silly is NOT a valid reason.

Let’s say that this little girl really did want to wear her costume to school the day after Halloween. It was an angel costume, BTW. A cute white dress with a halo headband and some elastic strap-on wings. Would you have a problem letting your child go to school wearing that costume? Personally, I wouldn’t. That doesn’t mean I’d sit back and do nothing – but it would be my child’s decision to make. I wouldn’t rob her of the experience to learn from her own decisions.

I feel that most of the time parents will try to talk their child out of doing something like this. It is the parents limiting belief that gets in the way. The parent believes the child will look silly, or the parent worries that the teachers (and other parents) will think he or she has bad parenting judgment.

So that’s the “pain” that the parent is trying to avoid.

But let’s look at the learning experience that the child misses out on when the parent gets in the way. The child may wake up the next morning and decide they really don’t want to wear their costume anymore. This, alone, helps the child learn how to make decisions.

Or the child might go to school and be the only one wearing a Halloween costume. Classmates might think it’s cool – teaching your child that it can be fun to stand out from the crowd. Or classmates might tease this costume-loving child. All kids will eventually get teased about something, so I think we may as well train our kids NOW – when they are young.

If I were faced with this situation I’d encourage the child to make up her own mind on what to wear. And if she wanted to wear the costume I’d point out to her that some kids might say nasty things because she’s dressing different. I’d ask her how she would respond to a mean comment by a classmate. I’d do this as a coach, not as someone trying to convince the child to make a different decision. Coaching a child is about helping her understand the potential outcomes, and how she’ll deal with each one. It’s not about making decisions FOR your child and taking away the learning that comes from dealing with your own problems.

Perhaps most important – I want to encourage you to raise a child who is comfortable trying something new. If you discourage your kid from wearing a certain item of clothing at the age of 4, imagine how much damage you are doing to that kid’s long term potential for thinking outside of the box.

Pretty spooky thought (and fitting for Halloween).

I was looking through several parenting blogs today. I enjoyed reading this particular post over at TheMommyInsider.com. The author, Alicia Hagan, was writing about halloween safety tips.

Here are a few of her tips that I think are worth repeating.

1. Make sure that your child’s costume isn’t too long. They could trip and fall.
2. Make sure that children have full visibility when they are wearing any kind of mask.
3. Check your children’s candy before they eat it.
4. Know where your kids are going, if you aren’t going with them. If they have a cell phone make sure they have it on them so you can check in, or so they can get a hold of you in case of emergency.
5. Set a curfew for your children so that you know when to expect them home and are not stuck wondering about their safety.
6. Go over all the tips and rules for a safe Halloween with your children before they head out of the house.

Don’t you think these are pretty simple rules to follow? She points out that often parents get so excited about helping prepare costumes, that safety isn’t kept in mind.

Here are a few more tips I’ll add:

• Be careful with candles. They may be small, but they are still a source of fire! Do not put them near curtains or mantles that could easily catch fire. Blow them out when you are not around. Better yet, use flashlights or light lights instead of candles.
• Use child-friendly paint or washable markers for decorations. It might be just me, but I am also very wary of any paints or makeups that go on the skin that says “made in China”. Manufacturing is such a big business in China that I’m skeptical of the quality and (more important) the ingredients used. If you aren’t sure that it’s safe, do NOT put it on your child’s skin.
• Be especially careful with pointed props such as swords, knives and wands. This is more of a risk with younger kids, so use your judgement.
• Go out with your own kids. Take part in the fun! Enjoy it and build up those positive memories! If you can’t go with your own child, make sure you 100% trust whoever you send them out with.
• For older kids – make sure to remind them that vandalism is unacceptable behavior. When I was a boy I knew lots of kids who would toilet paper cars, or houses, or smash pumpkins. A classmate even once threw an egg at our house. This kind of behavior is not OK. Halloween doesn’t make it an exception.

Have a safe and HAPPY Halloween everyone!

This morning I was working at my computer in my basement office. It just so happens that the office doubles as a play area for the kids. My youngest daughter was playing with her toys in the nook that we setup for them.

I was busy working away on some new material for parent training. I see my daughter walk up to me quietly and stand beside me patiently. I turn to her and say, “Yes sweetie – do you need something?”

She extends her arms to show me a little toy baby carriage that she’s holding. It’s in two pieces. The cover to the baby carriage is one of those snap-on plastic pieces. It’s not snapped on. Liz says to me, “Daddy I tried to fix this but it didn’t work”.

I ask her, “What do you mean you tried to fix it, what’s wrong with it?” At this point I hadn’t yet realized that the carriage cover just needed to be snapped in. Anyway, she says to me, “Well Daddy – I tried to glue it together but it didn’t work”.

Ahhh, now I get it. She hands me the two pieces and I realize she had used the arts & crafts “glue stick” to try to assemble her “broken” carriage. I snapped the pieces together and showed her how it fits together. She smiled and said “Thanks, Daddy”.

Then I walk over to the table where she had the glue stick. I chuckle to myself on the inside. I’m thinking about how cute she is for trying to glue together her “broken” toy. She’s not even 5 yet.

I wanted to tell you this story because I am sure plenty of these little things happen to parents. Even though my daughter’s attempt to fix her toy would never have worked, you have to promote problem solving skill development in kids.

If I had scolded her for making a mess with the glue, I would be squashing her creativity and I’d actually be teaching her NOT to try to solve her own problems. I’d be encouraging her to come to me instead of figuring it out for herself.

If she had made a big mess, I would have just shown her how to clean it up. But it was only glue stick. No big deal.

A good rule of thumb is to stop and think, before you react, about what the child’s intention was. In this case it is obvious my daughter was trying to solve a problem on her own. That’s to be encouraged!

As we washed our hands, I told my girl that I was happy to see her looking for ways to solve her own problems. I hope this little story helps you encourage and understand your own child just a tiny bit more.

Enjoy your children,
Chris Thompson