How to Talk To Your Kids About…A New Baby
Bringing home a new baby fills a house with joy and wonder. It can also bring worry and stress to older siblings who feel their world has just been turned upside down. A sense of jealousy, resentment, and even a little anger is normal. Siblings fear there won’t be enough love, or time to go around.
As parents, there are things we can say and do to help ease the transition.
Talk about what WON’T change once the new baby arrives and emphasis all the things that will be the same. This includes:
- Keeping a similar routine – Talk to your kids about their favorite parts of the day, and make sure you keep those consistent.
- Avoiding making big changes like toilet training, graduating from the crib, or changing rooms. Work through these transitions a few months before baby arrives, or a few months after.
- Keeping life predictable - Remember, predictability brings a sense of security that is really important to children, so keep things predictable and consistent.
Talk about the new “big sibling role”. Be sure your conversations are realistic. Getting your kids excited about the things the baby can’t do until he/she is four will create false hopes.
Involve older siblings in making meaningful decisions, before and after the baby arrives and let them help with the new baby. Make sure that one-on-one time is still spent with each child. Make it a point to have individual conversations and experiences with each of your children. This will help them feel special and loved and let them know that the new baby has not taken their spot in the family.
A fun way to help older siblings make the new baby transition: we give each of our children a disposable camera and ask them to be the photographers. They feel important and have fun taking pictures at the hospital and once we get home. It is so fun to get the pictures developed. Some of our very best photos have come from our kids.
What’s worked the best for your family??
Parents Too Plugged In? That’s What Our Kids Say
“She’s always on her blackberry. It’s soooo annoying!”
“I hate it when he’s talking on his cell. It makes me feel sad.”
“I put a timer on the computer. When it goes off, it’s time to play with me.”
Sound familiar? After all, we do seem be complaining a lot these days about our kids’ online behavior. Except these complaints were issued by children! Yep, the kids.
Those were actual statements uttered by a group of four to seven year olds all fed up that their parents were always chatting, texting, or clicking away. And the kids sure had their reasons:
Each chat, text, or click, they said, meant less time for “Mom and me.”
Each chat, text, or click also made the kids feel like they didn’t matter to their parents. “She likes her Blackberry more than me.”
Ouch!
NBC correspondent, Kate Snow interviewed the children as part of a Dateline special entitled, “The Perils of Parenting.” I was the parenting expert in another room with the parents who watched and listened to their kids’ comments. Hidden cameras and a crew captured everything on tape. (That special aired Monday, Sept. 13, 2011).
If you’re surprised by how the kids responded, imagine their parents’ reactions. “Shocked,” “Sad,” “Guilty,” were their most frequently voiced terms.
“I had no idea it bothered my child so much,” parents told me again and again.
Though parents may be amazed by their kids’ responses, most child experts are not.
For five years Sherry Turkle, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Initiative on Technology and Self, has been analyzing how parental technology use affects kids. Her research found widespread feelings of kid hurt, jealousy, and competition – almost the exact comments the children shared on Dateline.
But the real hidden danger is that each minute we connect electronically means less face-to-face time with our kids.
Though there is no guarantee, fifty years of solid research shows that the best way to reduce risky behaviors and raise emotionally healthy kids is the strength of the parent-child relationship.
So what do you think your kids would say about your behavior? Don’t be so sure they wouldn’t express similar concerns.
Tips to Help Us Unplug and Engage More with Our Kids
Here are things you can do to make sure a plugged-in lifestyle doesn’t disengage you from your family.
Check Your Online Records to Get a Reality Check
While you may have important business obligations, make sure you’re not plugged in too much to risk crucial family interactions.
There is no rewind or retrieval button when it comes to parenting.
Do an honest assessment of your typical daily online habits.
Start by identifying specific daily times you designate for family interactions (such as your dinner hour or when your child is open to chat).
Next, check your cell phone, text, and tweet logs during those times, and add up the minutes.
How are you doing? The key, of course, is to find the balance that works for your family, and then stick to it.
Ask the Kids
Have a courageous conversation as a family. Ask flat out: “Am I too plugged in?” (And be prepared for their honest answer). Also ask questions such as: “How will you let me know you want my attention? How can we start unplugging and connecting more?” And then engage and empower the kiddos: “What suggestions do you have so we’re more unplugged?” (After all, this is the Net Generation. We might as well use their expertise. Research says the typical eight to seventeen year old is plugged in 7 and a half hours a day!)
Use Voice Mail and Alarm Features
While there are clear advantages to social networking, don’t let the ease of an online connection steal precious minutes from your family interactions. Identify those key “family moment times.” Then turn on your cell’s voice mail features. Set the alarm on your computer that alerts you as to your online length. Set features to “plug you out” at designated times.
Create “Sacred Unplugged Times”
Kids say that family meals, school activities, sporting events, and after school (pick up and welcoming connectors) are when they’re most bothered by their parents’ networking behaviors. Identify your own family’s “sacred times,” announce them to your family, post them, and then preserve them. Unplug!
Tune into Silent Signals
Kids usually don’t give flat-out requests asking us to put down our Blackberries or close those laptops, but their behavior can indicate silent wishes. Each child has a unique way of letting you know they wish you’d plug into them more, so identify your child’s signals, tune in and then plug in.
Attention getters: Acting out, ansty, clowning
Proximity: Moves in closer to you; grabs or pulls on you
Sulking: Pouting or turning inward
Annoying: Grabs your blackberry, throws something, unplugs you.
Hint: When we asked kids how do you know your parent is listening to you? The answer was always: “She looks at me eye to eye.” “He puts down what he’s doing?” “He tunes into me and not his dumb iPhone.”
Don’t Text and Drive!
If you caught the Dateline special you would have seen one very frightening segment: teens who were texting, driving and crashing – again and again. The real kicker was when teens were asked the million-dollar question: “Where did you get the idea it was okay to text and drive?” Their answer: “My parents do it all the time!” Research also verifies what teens say. We are texting and driving more than our kids, and it is sending them a potentially deadly message that it’s okay to do so. So do not text and drive. Show your teens how you turn off your cell and put it in your glove compartment the minute you get into your car – just as you expect them to do. If you absolutely must answer your cell, pull over to the side of the road and then – and only then – answer. Your kids say they are watching – and they don’t like what they see! Do you blame them?
Don’t get me wrong. There are clear advantages to Blackberries, computers, Facebook, twitter, and social networking including the biggest one: being able to spend more time with our families.
Let’s just make sure that we plug into our kids more than our Blackberries. Push the pause button every once in a while and check your online behavior. Remember, there is no rewind button when it comes to regaining family life.
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Dr Borba’s book The Big Book of Parenting Solutions: 101 Answers to Your Everyday Challenges and Wildest Worries, is one of the most comprehensive parenting book for kids 3 to 13. This down-to-earth guide offers advice for dealing with children’s difficult behavior and hot button issues including biting, tantrums, cheating, bad friends, inappropriate clothing, sex, drugs, peer pressure and much more. Each of the 101 challenging parenting issues includes specific step-by-step solutions and practical advice that is age appropriate based on the latest research . The Big Book of Parenting Solutions has been released and is now available at amazon.com.
New Font Helps Kids with Dyslexia Read More Accurately
Christian Boer, a graphic designer from the Netherlands, put his artistic talent to work to solve his own struggles with dyslexia. He designed a new font that gives the brain extra help recognizing letters, words and punctuation. The changes to the letters are subtle but may make all the difference to a child or adult with the condition. The font was his Masters thesis and now Dyslexie is available for purchase on his website at http://www.studiostudio.nl/project-dyslexie/ and payment is accepted via Paypal in euros. There are business and personal versions as well as a school version for kids.
Here is a video demonstration of the dyslexie font:
Preparing Our Kids for Global Digital Citizenship Success
We’ve all heard how our world is getting smaller – how our digital connectivity is conquering distance and outpacing time. But how does this closeness shape the way we interact with each other? More importantly, how does it affect our youth?
This is the reality: The way young people socialize online deeply affects the relationships they have with themselves and the people around them. We have to acknowledge that our kids meet and connect emotionally through their digital devices. They cultivate relationships through a number of virtual world connections – by joining social networks and receiving status updates; building lists of friends and groups; and receiving IMs, texts and video messages.
After hearing countless news stories about identity theft, sexting and cyberbullying, we’ve made the frightening discovery that sometimes wires and signals can separate actions from consequences. And we’ve seen our children’s misguided belief in anonymity slink in easy as pie and place their security, reputations and lives at risk.
But things are changing. Media literacy and global digital citizenship are quickly becoming the key issues in education and law enforcement. Dialogue surrounding the consumption and production of information across connected technologies is growing at a heartwarming rate.
And leaders are working alongside students, using their experience with the Internet, cell phones, MP3 players and gaming devices to create a framework around kids and teens worldwide successfully learning how to be good to each other while engaging in new media activities.
Twenty years ago, good citizenship took place in the microcosm of the classroom and was simply rewarded with a certificate. Today, with its millennial twist, global digital citizenship reaches far beyond the playground fence. Its stewards are enriched with a much deeper understanding of how their actions affect their own lives as well as those of their peers, at home and around the world.
That’s why students must take an active role in identifying and establishing ethical digital use. They need to be involved in the critical thinking and policy creation that affects ultimate change. It’s called buy-in, and these days our savvy students require it if they’ll be expected to have a healthy relationship with technology.
Defining successful global digital citizenship matters to all of us because it profoundly touches our youngest technocrats. Although they are swift enough to sync their social media profiles on their cells, they may not be equipped to handle the overwhelming cyber situations that erupt from uniformed decisions.
We all want to keep our kids safe, but that won’t happen if we create barriers and block device usage. It is only when we empower them to explore their connected world that they will be keyed into the pitfalls and advantages of social navigation across all platforms.
Kid-friendly Foods That Soothe
When children are under the weather, they usually turn to Mom for comfort. This season, be prepared with tasty treats that do double duty – they soothe symptoms and help speed up the healing process.
“Runny noses, coughs and intermittent fevers can all be soothed at home,” says Dr. Ben Lee, a hospitalist at Children’s Medical Center of Dallas and an assistant professor of pediatrics at University of Texas Southwestern, in Dallas. “The old adage of a bowl of chicken noodle soup does have some truth, as it provides necessary fluids and calories to help kids feel better.”
There are other options too. Here are a few unexpected, inexpensive and tasty treats to have on hand for your kids this cold and flu season.
Oatmeal Cookies
Every mom knows that extra sleep is key for sick children, but getting an unhappy child to climb into bed is seldom an easy task. Oats contain high levels of tryptophan, the amino acid best known for making you feel sleepy after eating a big turkey dinner on Thanksgiving. A bowl of oats may be a bit heavy on the stomach, especially for a sick kid, but eating one or two oatmeal cookies will produce the same effect and help kids settle down and get the rest they need to feel better.
100 Percent Juice Drinks
It’s normal for most kids to become mildly dehydrated while sick with the flu. Watch for signs, which include a dry or sticky mouth, dry skin, irritability and dizziness. “Liquids are important to prevent dehydration,” says Lee.
The right liquids make all the difference, though. Avoid caffeinated beverages and hydrate kids with 100 percent juice. All-natural juice drinks are fat-free and nutrient-dense, and are loaded with vitamins and immunity-boosting antioxidants that many of their sugary counterparts lack. If the juice is too sweet or strong, mix it with an equal amount of water to dilute the taste without washing away the nutrients. Kids younger than 1 year should hydrate with a beverage that contains electrolytes.
Ginger Ale or Ginger Candies
Many studies have shown that ginger curbs nausea and alleviates an upset stomach. The trick is to find foods and beverages that actually contain pure ginger. Look for the words “ginger” or “ginger extract” on the ingredient list. Some sodas, especially those available in natural food stores, are going to be your best bet. Ginger candies made from real ginger can also help provide relief for older children.
Ice Pops
A cool ice pop can numb irritated nerve endings to help soothe an inflamed sore throat and provide fluids to quell dehydration. Seek out ice pops made from 100 percent juice or fruit puree, and avoid unnecessary artificial sweeteners and additives. Ice pops made from 100 percent juice are loaded with healthy antioxidants, and those fortified with extra vitamins and minerals can give added boost to the immune system to help speed recovery time.
Honey
Honey is extremely effective at soothing coughs, according to research from Penn State College of Medicine. In fact, a small dose of buckwheat honey before bedtime reduced the severity and frequency of coughs and provided significant relief to participants in a recent study.
“Honey has been reported to reduce coughing by coating the throat to help reduce irritation,” says Lee. One to two teaspoons thirty minutes prior to bedtime should do the trick, he says. An important warning: Children under 2 years old should avoid this sweet soother to prevent the risk of a botulism infection.
