Next to rent or mortgage payments, childcare often ranks as the second-highest expenditure in a household budget. Working couples can pay a whopping 10-20% of their incomes on childcare while their children are small. Seeing the high cost needed to be expensed for their children’s care, some couples decided to…
Everyone benefits from a good night’s sleep. Children also need to learn how to unwind at the end of the day with an uninterrupted period of restorative sleep. For some children, this comes easily. For others, it may mean a night of counting sheep and difficult morning rises. Break the…
Separation is a challenging time for many parents because it is an adjustment to a new way of life. There are both positive and negative factors to separation and the corresponding changes, but one of the issues that can arise is the differences that parents may have in the ways…
Several studies show that girls’ self-esteem and self-confidence tends to decline after about age nine as girls enter puberty. How do you encourage self confidence and increase self esteem during these early years? There are things that can be done. This article will review some of those things. Start with…
As parents, we do our best to keep our children healthy and safe. We buckle up their seatbelts, tell them to wash their hands before dinner, and to eat their fruits and vegetables. Yet, childhood poisonings occur every day across the globe. According to Safe Kids Worldwide, one hundred children…
Words can open up a world of knowledge and adventure for your children, and reading to them is so important in their development. Here are 5 ways to make reading to your child a habit. Read your child’s favorite book over and over… and over… (you know the drill). Choose…
Spring is the time of year when high school juniors are learning about different colleges and high school seniors are receiving their acceptance letters. Yes, and a great many high school seniors will receive those other kinds of letters as well: You’ve been waitlisted, or even worse, the rejection letter….
Preschool education is a hot topic among parents and early childhood educators today. If you are the parent of a preschooler (or younger child) you need to ask yourself why you should care about preschool learning. There are three key reasons why you should not only concern yourself with your…
Shortly after having my first baby, I decided I was going to be the perfect parent. I immediately began to keep an intelligent library of child-rearing books on my nightstand and would replenish the stock as each book was absorbed into my sub-consciousness and checked off the “read” list. My…
I learned the truth about Santa Claus from our big brother. I was skeptical at first, so we sneaked out to my grandparents’ trailer and he showed me all the gifts we had asked Santa to bring. He was telling the truth! My brother had somehow stumbled upon an amazing…