The Case Against Time-out - The Natural Child Project

Right now my wife, Cathy, and I are trying to figure out if using time-outs for our 3 yr old son, “Boo”, is worth it. He usually responds better when we talk to him or change his activity to something else. But lately he’s been acting out, demanding Cathy’s attention when she’s with our 16 month old daughter. So this is where we have been saying, “if you don that one more time you’ll be in time-out!” Boo knows what a time-out is, he’s been in a few, but they never seem to really be all that effective. Anyway, here is a snippet and full link to an article about why not to use time-outs. Maybe we’ll learn something from this.

The Case Against Time-out - The Natural Child Project

Parents can develop a well-behaved, self-disciplined child best by responsively and continuously meeting their childs developmentally normal needs and drives; by demonstrating and articulating humane values in day-to-day interactions with their youngster; and by exposing their child to life experiences that strengthen and reinforce these values. Troubled and spoiled children are created when parents do not meet their childs normal needs and drives consistently and appropriately.

The Battle for Mommy (Part One of The War for Attention)

It’s Sunday morning, two days before Christmas and right now the one thought going through my head is “did anyone buy me the Bose QuietComfort 3 Noise Canceling Headphones”? (Oh please let there be a Santa!)

For those of you just finding my blog, I have two children. A son, “Boo” age 3, and a daughter, “K-Bop” 16 months.

I woke up with the kids at 6am and all things were going pretty smooth. K-Bop was up first and then Boo came down about 20 minutes later. I thought, “What the Hell, let’s give Mommy a much deserved ‘Sleep in Day’”, so I had Daddy time with both kids from 6am until about 8am. I would have to say that this was one of the best weekend mornings for a while. Both kids seemed to play well together and even play independently too! We mostly colored or Boo following paths and mazes in his activity books. I had a mix of kids music playing in the background. Maybe this was the key to my 2 hours of success?? They love kid music and I could deal with another listening of “Old MacDonald” and “Itsy Bitsy Spider” if it kept them good natured.

Ok I can’t say EVERYTHING was good, K-Bop did have a short crying outburst because she couldn’t figure out if she wanted to color standing up or sitting down or sitting down on my lap.

So now let’s discuss the “Battle for Mommy”.

Read the rest of this entry »

How to Be a Good Partner When It Comes to After 9-5 Duties

This is a great article to read (from another blog called brip blap) and comprehend if you are a parent. Now my wife and I have to adjust this article a bit since we are both working and the kids go to day care, but some of these still apply.

Don’t ‘decompress’ for an hour after you get home.

Turn off cellphones and BlackBerries when you get home. 

Those are two of the easiest fixes we can make when we get home after picking up the kids. We need to make a change because right now we are struggle with the comments: “I folded all the laundry”, “But I emptied the dishwasher last time”, “I put the kids to bed everynight”, pretty much whatever we can think up.

So when I landed on this article I thought I should help spread it around and give some ideas to other parents dealing with similar situations.

Read the full article written by Steve on brip blap » how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

Feeding Your Picky Eater Healthy Food Choices

How many of you out there have a picky eater? If you answered “No” then maybe you should be writing a blog post for ME to read! Our three year old son is very picky and my wife and I find it rather difficult to find the food choices that he’ll eat without fussing. I tend to not push the need to try new food items at dinner time as I’d rather spend the 2 hours a day that I see him awake as happy as can be.

This is an article I read on MSN and was originally from Parade Magazine. It has a lot of good suggestions that will hopefully help us parents with picky eaters!

Parents of Picky Eaters Unite!!

How to Raise a Healthy Eater - MSN Health & Fitness - Kids’ Health

5 Ways to Save 90% on Designer Kids Clothing. | Family Hack

Well it’s been a long time since my last blog entry. I’ve been pretty busy with work and when I get home and play with the kids I don’t have much time or desire to head to my cold, basement office to write.

Tonight i was Stumbling (StumbleUpon) the Internet and landed on this blog page called Family Hack. Pretty cool blog so I wanted to share one of the posts that caught my attention. We all want to save some money when buying clothes, toys, etc for our kids. [Dad's that could equate to a few extra bucks to stash into your drying up beer fund! hint hint]

Anyway here is a link to FamilyHack.com and the blog post about

5 Ways to Save 90% on Designer Kids Clothing. | Family Hack