Tips for taking the children out to eat

Have you wanted to enjoy a nice meal out with your whole family? Have you tried it before but the experience turned into a nightmare? Were your children screaming and crying after the first ten minutes you were seated?

Trust me, most parents have experienced the exact same problem. Many parents want to know what they can do to make the restaurant experience much more enjoyable for the entire family.

Here are a few tips:

1. Create a bag of toys that you use only for restaurants. Keep this bag stored in the trunk of your car and only use it when you eat out. This way the toys will be like new for the children and help keep them entertained.

2. When your children are old enough to color keep a coloring book and some crayons handy and bring them with you. While some restaurants offer crayons many times they might be out. Bringing your own ensures that your child will have something to do.

3. Pick a family style restuarant. That way the wait staff are used to serving families and will understand your needs. Other customers in the restaurant will tend to understand what you are going through as well.

4. If your children are old enough play an "I spy" game. For example, I spy something that is white with a grey lid. The children guess, if they don't get it reveal your answer: a salt shaker. Keep giving them clues as needed though.

5. Go early. Avoid the rush. If you go early around 5 you will be served much more quickly. This will allow for less time your children have to be entertained.

6. Put the children's orders in first. Allow them to serve your children before your meals are ready. Children always eat much slower than adults so not only will this give them plenty of time to eat, it will also give them something to do.

Hope some of these tips help. EAting out can be an enjoyable experience when your children behave accordingly. Hopefully some of these tips will help!

7 ways to raise a happy child

I read a great article on lifestyle msm that talked about ways to raise a happy child. The article talked about fostering connections, not trying to make your child happy, nuturing your own happiness, praising the right things, allowing for success and failure, and giving real responsibilities.

For those parents that may parent emotionally I really thought thier second tip on not trying to make your child happy was great advice. Of course we want to see our child happy but what are the long term outcomes of always providing ways to make our child happy. It is our job as parents to get our children ready for the real world and this advice really helps us to see why.

If you have a chance the article is a great read. Click here to read the article.

Giving choices helps your child feel in control

Children always want to feel a sense of control. From an early age before we even realize it they are attempting to control their environment. Once they learn how to talk and interact it becomes more apparent. What can we do as parents to help them feel more control over their environment? We can give them choices.

Have you often wondered how to give them choices or what are appropriate choices to give your children? The answer isn't always easy and sometimes you just have to try and see what works best for your child and your family.

Here are some examples of ways to offer choices to your children:

"You can choose to clean up your toys or we will take your toys away."

"Would you like to share with your friends or play alone?"

"I see that you have all of the cars. Your friends would like to play with some cars too. Which cars can you share with your friends?"

"We do not color on the walls. Would you like to choose to color on paper or a coloring book?"

"I understand that you want to play soccer and your friend wants to play catch. You can play both and take turns. Would you like to choose to play catch first or soccer?"

Another area that your child can feel a sense of control over is dressing themselves and choosing their own outfit. For those of you that don't mind if your child matches let them have a go at picking out what they want to wear. For those of you that can't stand a coordinated outfit offer your child a choice: "Would you like to wear the red shirt or the blue shirt?" Would you like to wear the tan pants or the black pants?" Offering your child choices will make them feel a sense of pride in what they wear.

Potty Training Tips

Potty training for some parents can be an overdrawn out process that you just can't wait to end. For the lucky ones your child may be potty trained in a day or two without much effort at all. I have heard it all and experienced both.

With my first child I admit I absolutely did not know what I was doing. I knew I didn't want to force her and I knew I wanted it to happen when she was ready but I think in the whole process I ended up confusing her causing it to take me what could have been accomplished in a week, turning into a three month process. From her I learned:

1. When you feel your child is ready go for it! Don't turn back. Get his/her favorite character underwear and be prepared for a lot of clean up.

2. Don't confuse them with pull ups. Pull ups are just like diapers. They will pee in the pull ups and not really understand what the big deal is.

3. Give them lots of fluids. The more they drink the more opportunity they will have to go to the bathroom.

4. Set a timer if you need to for every 30 minutes and have them sit on the potty. Give them a reward such as a sticker or something else your child values each time they sit on the potty regardless of whether they go or not.

5. If you have trouble getting your child to stay on the potty long enough to pee or pass a bowl movement read a story to them. During this 2-5 minute time they may actually go.

6. When they do go on the potty do the potty dance! Give a reward then too. Some parents like to give one or more m&m's or something fun that your child doesn't get on a regular basis.

7. Be consistent. It will be a tiring few days but you have to keep on it. Remember, essentially you are changing a habit. It takes awhile to break a habit so you have to keep at it.

8. The most important thing I learned the first time around is don't put your child in pull ups when you go out in public. Keep them in underwear and bring 3 changes of clothes or more depending on how long you will be gone. Some people may choose to wait awhile before going in public once your child gets the potty training thing but for those of us who need to run that grocery store errand go for it and bring extra clothes!

9. If you live in a country type setting keep a potty chair in the back of your car for emergencies. Then you can pull over to the side of the road and let them do their business.

10. Sometimes letting them see the bigger picture can help to. Mention things they can do when they are potty trained like going to preschool. This really motivated my daughter. She wanted to go to preschool so bad and that helped her keep her goal in mind.

Lucky me my second child was a breeze. Partly because I learned from my mistakes and partly because she did not like the feeling of being wet or dirty. She was also totally stoked to buy some Dora Mermaid Kingdom underwear and wanted to wear them. Once she figured out how nice it felt to wear underwear instead of diapers she never looked back. She potty trained herself in one day and two and a half years old. Of course I knew not to look back either and we never used pull ups or diapers again!

Helping your child feel secure in the dark

Have you wanted to go camping but were afraid of how your child would handle the dark without a night light? Have you wondered if there was a way to make your child feel more at ease during activities outside when it is dark?

The first time we went camping I was so nervous about how my daughter would handle being in the dark all night without the possibility of turning the light on if she needed it. So in order to cope I went to the dollar store and bought some glow in the dark bracelets and necklaces. Both of my girls were thrilled and loved the glow in the dark bracelets and necklaces. The important thing to remember though is to buy enough for a new one each night as they don't work past one day.

We also purchased animal flashlights from Walmart. They are really cute and come in many different kinds of animals. At some point we also bought the animal lanterns too which my children actually use and have on their nightstands in their bedroom. Aly's favorite time to use her lantern has been when she makes forts in our house and chooses to sleep in her fort all by herself instead of her bed.

If you are bringing your children to local firework shows my advice is to bring some glow in the dark bracelets and necklaces. They will have a blast and it will give them something to wave around and have fun with while waiting for the show to begin!

Let your child feel a sense of control

Since my daughter was four I began letting her take part in going through the toys in the playroom and helping to decide what we could donate to the thrift store. Before when I would donate toys my daughter would be angry asking me what happened to this toy or what happened to that toy. So when I began letting her help everything went very smoothly. She felt in control of what she wanted to give to the thrift store and it made her feel good to give her toys away to children that didn't have very many.

Now that she is five I give her complete control. I take a bin of toys and place it on the floor. I dump the toys out and tell her to put the toys she wants to keep in the bin and the toys she no longer wants in the plastic bag. This works very well for both of us. Now I have her completely in charge of getting rid of the cluttered mess in the playroom. This definitely helps me out too because I sure have lots of other rooms around the house to clean.

Give it a try with your child. You will feel amazed at how empowered they are and you will feel good at the help you are getting around the house.

Is your child ready for kindergarten?

Covenant Home Curriculum has a great website with an actual exam for you to fill out to find out if your child is ready for kindergarten. The exam consists of forty questions and addresses topics such as letter identification, letter sounds, cutting with scissors, identifying numbers, counting, colors, gross motor skills, attentions span, etc. It is a great test to see where your child is at. If you want to take the exam or check it out click here.