Children

At Home With Your Kids – Got Time to Spend with Your Kids?

Young children are fun, fast, curious little creatures, that need us to keep up with them 24/7.
This is a good thing; it makes learning when they are young, fun and easy.
Being with your children requires you to pay attention to them, talking with them, not “to” them and being involved in the things that they are interested in.

The more time you spend with your infant, baby, toddlers, child, and teen the more you can show, teach, watch, build and cuddle.

Here are some suggestions on spending quality time with your kids.

• 1. Reading to them from the last few MONTHS BEFORE they are born is a great idea.
  They have proven that unborn children prefer their Mother’s voice!
  Then when they get older, you can listen to audio books on cd’s or tapes.
  My children loved this.
• 2. As they are listening to the book, get them to draw pictures about the story they are listening to. You will be surprised at how well they can interpret what they hear by practicing this technique.
  Later on their comprehension scores will soar!
• 3. Find crafts to do as a family, whether it is painting by number, ceramic, crafts or putting together puzzles.  Try to include everyone. Little ones can sit and pick colors or whatever to keep them included.
• 4. Watch movies together. Family oriented, clean, wholesome, and funny ones, and then get them to talk about what they liked and disliked. Getting into the habit of talking, as a family about everything when they are very small will carry through until they are grown.
• 5. If it was a particularly good movie with a moral, or historical value then get the older children to write a short piece on why they thought it was good.
• 6. Family game night is a great idea, play cards, scrabble, monopoly, rummy cube, or whatever else is agreeable to your family.  The children won’t think about it being a learning experience when they are counting cubes in rummy cube!
• 7. Take your kids to the zoo, the park, the natural history museums, and even if you can’t take them far, take them camping.  Don’t let them grow up saying, “my parents never went anywhere or did anything with us.”
• 8.Teach them to throw a ball, then a Frisbee. For the toddlers, get one of
  the “big and soft” balls at your local discount store and play ball
  with them. (Remember your camera, you will need it).
• 9.Play softball, volleyball, bad mitten, croquet, or touch football with them when they are old enough.  Remember to always play fair, or they won’t “learn the right sportsmanship attitude”.
• 10. Let your children experience music first hand. Give them a kazoo when they are little. If they seem to have some talent, invest in it and move up from there. Encouragement goes a long way, but negativity does too. Remember, they aren’t Chopin or Mozart!
• 11. If your kids go to church, then please don’t just drop them off.
  GO with them. This is the best example you could be.
• Please send us suggestions on spending time with your kids.
  We would love to hear from you.

Do’s and Don’ts for raising great kids. These were
learned from experience, lots of experience.

Do’s

1. Spend time with your children early on reading and listening to audio books. This will instill in them a very good imagination that will last a lifetime. In other words, turn off the television.

2. Take time to teach your children good eating habits and table manners
from the start. It will pay off when you go out to eat in a nice restaurant.

3 Listen to their stories, no matter how silly, or wild. Pay attention to what they are saying, they could be trying to tell you something important that is not coming out in what they are actually saying. Example: Mom, Do you think Billy’s Mom would be mad if he threw a baseball through someone’s window?
See what I mean?

4. Do show affection, hugs, cuddles, and snuggles.Show them you love them “no matter what”.
When they get something right, tell them, show you are proud of them. When they get something wrong, let them know it was wrong and encourage them to do better next time in a loving manner.

5. Get the grandparents involved with your children as much as you can. They can be a very good influence with the right cooperation from you!  Grandpa can tell stories from his childhood, and Grandma can tell you how to cook the old fashioned way!(these are just examples, but just think of the possibilities!)

Don’ts

1. Don’t waiver on your discipline. If you start it, stay with it. Your child will understand that you are not going to be bribed, coerced, or talked out of the punishment.
This will make them think twice about doing “it” again.

2. Don’t discipline harshly when your children are very young.
Start out gentle but firm. Be consistent.

3. Don’t let grandparents over-ride every decision. This will lead to trouble later on. I know they mean well but this puts a wedge between the parent of the child and the parent of the parent. Be firm, but loving in your decisions. Explain to your parents why you are vetoing their ideas. Remember Grandma and Grandpa, that you would not have wanted your parents to do this to you, or if they did, how did you like it?

4. Don’t take it for granted that your child understands exactly what you mean
when you tell them something. Sometimes it takes a few “examples” to make sure.

5. Don’t gossip or put someone down in front of your children. (We shouldn’t do this at all!) You can’t tell them not to say bad things or talk about someone, if they hear you do it. Lead by example.

6. Don’t let the television or the X-box be your babysitter. Garbage in Garbage out! Think about what you remember as a child watching tv or playing games and how it effected you. Note: Today’s TV and games are much more adult rated then when we were kids.

7. Don’t neglect to talk to your children about drugs, alcohol, sex, and smoking. Don’t wait until you find out they know more about it than you do. The TV ads aren’t all wrong. Your kids should be able to talk to you about ANY THING!

8. Don’t do everything for your children.
This might be easier on you now but it won’t be when they are grown up and still asking you to do everything for them.
When they are very small this is a good thing, but as they get older, remember that they need to learn “how” to do things right, and this takes practice. The only way to get practice is to do the thing you are learning to do. Example: Making their beds. They won’t do it right the first time or even the next dozen times but if you encourage them they will finally get it! Encouragement goes a long way. Rough words will too, the opposite direction.