If you have ever felt a wave of panic when you drop your children off at family day care; you are not alone.
Many parents are concerned about how happy their children are throughout the day and their associated behaviour. Did you know that how parents manage their children at home has a direct influence on their behaviour at family day care? Here are three of the top influences that could be affecting your child’s behaviour.
Influence One:Sending your child off for the day without a suitable breakfast or no breakfast. Food is fuel to a child’s body. What they eat determines the capacity of their output. If your child has no food or unsuitable nutrition at breakfast, it can lead to them having poor concentration with emotional outbursts of frustration or an inability to cope in challenging situations. They can also be uncoordinated and clumsy leaving them more at risk of falls.
What to do instead:Avoid giving your child milk throughout the night. This will allow them to be hungrier in the morning. Ensure the foods you offer for breakfast include protein, complex carbohydrates, fruit, essential fats and iron. Avoid simple sugars and processed cereals containing preservatives.
Influence Two:Putting your child to bed too late in the evening.Being overtired before going to bed makes it hard for your child to settle to sleep. When they eventually fall asleep their sleep is often restless and fitful with waking. Their activities before a late bedtime often include watching TV and mischievous behaviour, both causing unsettled sleep.
What to do instead:Introduce an age appropriate evening routine.This will include a suitable meal time, bath time and play time before a pre bed time routine of books. Encourage family time with no TV distractions during the one and a half hours before bed.
Influence Three:Eating foods that provide an unsuitable and adverse effect on a child’sbody.Research shows obesity now affects 1:4 children in Australia and allergies and intolerances have increased 500% over the last 6 years. These preventable health issues are rapidly becoming the number one focus for our health industry’s funding.
What to do instead:Go back to basics. Avoid or at least reduce the amount of pre packaged food that your child consumes. Buy a lunchbox suitable for presenting natural foods in. Understand your child will not starve and you can create new habits with their eating behaviour. It is important to know; it is not up to your child to choose what to eat, only whether to eat. It is up to responsible adults to show children how to build a strong and healthy body for their future.
Jan’s book ‘taste it’ is available from www.settlepetal.com andis specifically helpful for parents wishing to address the influences discussed in this article.
Is it nearly impossible to get them to listen to you?
Do you yell at your kids and then feel guilty about it?
I understand. It’s hard to feel good when your kids are driving you crazy. What if I told you that there are simple ways to solve these problems? The tools and tricks that I want to share with you are totally different. They work. They reduce your stress and bring more smiles to your family. If this interests you, please keep reading.
My name is Chris Thompson. I’m a father and an expert in communication strategies, language patterns, influence and persuasion. I created “Talking to Toddlers” as a tool for parents. It shows you exactly how to get the positive results that you want with your toddler or preschooler. I use these tools with my children, and I teach other parents to do the same. Now it’s your turn to learn these valuable tools.
All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.
These are the things I learned:
* Share everything.
* Play fair.
* Don’t hit people.
* Put things back where you found them.
* Clean up your own mess.
* Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
* Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
* Wash your hands before you eat.
* Flush.
* Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
* Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
* Take a nap every afternoon.
* When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
* Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
* Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
* And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.
Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.
Source: “ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN” by Robert Fulghum.
A toddler will have tantrums. After all that is what they are known for!!!
Toddler’s are at an age where they are learning how things work and what sort of attention their behaviour will attract. This is normal however everything is harder to cope with when a person is tired. Most parents have probably experienced that in their own lives.
A day in the life of a toddler requires a feed, play, sleep balance to minimize fluctuating behaviour.
A toddler needs 5 meals evenly spaced over a day. All foods should contain proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. They should not be highly processed or contain refine sugars, preservatives and additives.
A toddler generally requires one or two sleeps during the day and 10 hours sleep overnight to function at their best.
When a child is given nutritious food at regular intervals and adequate rest their tantrums are much more short lived and easier to control allowing boundaries easier to establish and adhere to.
It is important to set our own internal picture of what family life is really about and what we want for our family’s future. This will prevent us from being swept along by society and media bombardment.
Society today can give us a skewed image of parenting. It is planted in our minds through media and advertising.
On one side we are inundated with opportunities and deals to purchase home and baby gadgets, takeaway and prepackaged foods, restaurant dining and lifestyle living with everything big and beautiful while on the other side we see financial pressures, abuse, stress related illness and the incidence of homeless children increasing at an alarming rate.
Work out the type of parenting style you want for your family and then seek out information, mentors and resources that support your focus. Our community’s future depends on the commitment and valuable input that family life can give to our children.
When I take a closer look at society and especially preschool children, I see children that they are often out of control. This I believe is not always the child’s fault but instead parents need to take responsibility.
I want to encourage you with the importance of setting boundaries for your preschoolers who are constantly learning about acceptable and unacceptable behaviours.
They will learn how to behave when they know what is expected of them. What they can eat and when they should go to bed are things that a parent can have control over, even if it causes some heated arguments. You just have to be the one who wins!
Be consistent with enforcing the boundaries you set, otherwise your child knows that they can push you further next time which only creates a more heated argument that you still need to win.
Parents who are tired, find being consistent in reinforcing boundaries and behaviours much harder to do.
Therefore, look after yourself by finding ways to eat well, exercise and minimize your stresses.
Over the years in my own family I have learnt how to listen and take care of babies, toddlers and preschoolers and today I am discovering the complexities of teenagers. As I look back, I can honestly say that the first 7 years of a child’s life is vital for the development of their character in later years.
Enjoy parenting today as tomorrow is not a promise it is only a chance!
When I take a closer look at society and especially preschool children, I see children that are often out of control. This I believe is not always the child’s fault but instead parents need to take responsibility.
I felt I needed to encourage you about the importance of setting boundaries for your preschoolers who are contantly learning about acceptable behaviours before they get much older like in the video clip above.
They will learn how to behave when they know what is expected of them. What they can eat and when they should go to bed are things that a parent can have control over, even if it causes some heated arguements. You just have to be the one who wins!
Be consistent with enforcing the boundaries you set, otherwise your child knows that they can push you further next time which only creates a more heated arguement that you still need to win.
Parents who are tired, find being consistent in reinforcing boundaries and behaviours much harder to do.
Therefore, look after yourself by finding ways to eat well, exercise and minimize your stresses.
Enjoy parenting today as tomorrow is not a promise it is only a chance!
