Author Archives: linda
Planning Your Family’s Summer Vacation With Special Needs Kids
You may think that traveling with your special needs child isn’t possible, but with a little planning it can be a great experience and memory maker for all of you. Travel expert and mother of three, Kim Mance, offers these tips to make your next family vacation great!
Think Outside the Box: Instead of spending hours confined sitting in a car or dealing with the stress of airport security…take a train.
Do Your Kids Ever Leave You Speechless?
Sometimes, kids do things and there just doesn’t seem to be a word to describe it…what do you call it when your 5 year old sticks a Skittle up his nose…or when your 4 year old decides to put the cat in the fridge?
Parents magazine has come up with some new words for you to use, so that you won’t be left speechless by your kids ever again.
blubbernecker (BLUH-behr-nekk-uhr) n: a stranger who stands and gawks at your child when she’s having a tantrum
chapturn (CHAHP-tern) v: to sneakily skip pages or abbreviate the narrative when reading a long kids’ book to your child
One Kid’s Trash Is Another Kid’s Treasure
We’ve all done it…walked into our kid’s room and thought, “how can they have nothing to do with all of these toys?” You start looking around and you find toys that you haven’t seen them play with in months…toys that they just had to have, but now just sit on the shelf.
So, what do you do with unloved and forgotten toys? Parents magazine thinks that you and your kids should host a “Play It Forward” party and they offer these tips on how to make it a big success:
A Family Emergency Escape Plan Can Save Lives
“House fires are much more common in the winter,” John Drengenberg, consumer safety director for Underwriters Laboratories recently told Parents magazine. Creating a family escape plan and practicing it twice a year can give you peace of mind and even save the lives of your family.
Parents magazine suggests these steps when developing your families escape plan:
- Find two exits from every room. The second exit can be a window. Teach your kids not to open a door that feels hot.
- Agree on a meeting spot. Make sure it’s well-known, like the big tree in the front yard or the playset in the back. Avoid decks and porches.
Turning Kids In To Healthy Eaters
With childhood obesity and anorexia/bulimia on the rise among kids lots of parents are stressing over what to feed their kids. It’s a balancing act…making meals that your kids like and will eat…not being judgemental…always being supportive…it’s tough. I bet Betty Crocker and Chef Boyardee never had this problem with their kids.
Dr. Ovidio Bermudez recently told Parents magazine that while parents don’t cause eating disorders, moms and dads can push a vulnerable kid into the danger zone or out of it. Many of the strategies for discouraging anorexia and bulimia are actually the same as those that curb overeating, he added.
Do These Jeans Make Me Look Fat?
I have to admit I’m guilty of asking my husband, “does this outfit make me look fat?” just about every time we walk out the door. I think on some level it’s normal to want to make sure that we look “nice” when we’re going out, but not eating or purging after you do eat so that you can achieve the perfect body image isn’t normal…it’s an illness.
I don’t think that, in our body conscious society, we are surprised by the number of teenage girls and even boys who suffer from anorexia and bulimia. The statistics that are surprising…frightening…and sad…are the number of young kids who are now dealing with these mental illnesses.
Playground Gossip Is Not Fun And Games
Do you remember playground gossip? I do and it usually went something like this…the meanest girl in class (you know the one…nicest clothes…prettiest hair) would take it upon herself to decide that “Debbie” had cooties and before recess was over she had most of the kids convinced not to talk to Debbie or they’d get cooties, too. Of course, you could protect yourself from the cooties if you wrote a C.P. (cootie protection) on your hand. It seems so harmless now, but I can’t imagine how hurtful it was for “Debbie” to have most of the kids in her class running away from her for no other reason than to be mean.
Who Can We Trust? Was The Study Linking Vaccine to Autism A Fraud?
A parent’s job is to worry…about everything. Are our kids going to a good school? Am I feeding them healthy meals? Are they safe when I’m not with them? Should I have them vaccinated…when a reputable study says that vaccines have been linked to autism? The question whether to have our kids vaccinated has been one of the toughest and most controversial that parents have had to face.
For many the thought that a vaccination for a childhood illness could increase their child’s chances of autism far out weighed the risk of that illness. So, when Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues published a paper in 1998 linking the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) shot to autism it was enough to convince many parents, worldwide, to fore go the vaccine.
Goodbye, Mr Chips…You’ve Been Replaced By A Robot
I think that everyone probably has a favorite teacher…the one that took the extra time to help you with your long division…the one that played with the kids at recess…the teacher that you knew loved to teach. What kind of memories do you think you’d have if your teacher was a robot?
It’s not that strange of a question or something out of a bad science fiction movie…30 robots have started teaching English to students in a South Korean city in a project designed to nurture the nascent robot industry.
Real Life “Glee” Gets A Big Surprise
I remember being in choir when I was in junior high. I couldn’t sing a note and neither could most of the other kids in it, but choir was a way out of a really boring study hall. So, basically our choir director got stuck with a bunch of no talent wanna be singers, who just didn’t want to get stuck in study hall…I almost feel sorry for her, now.
A New York Miracle
