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Parenting Information
Partnering With Your Daycare or Preschool
For the most positive daycare experience for your child, partner with your childcare center and make a personal investment beyond the monthly tuition. You can build your partnership with your daycare by volunteering your time, contributing goods or services, or donating money.
If your child is in daycare full-time, he is spending 40 ? 60 hours at your daycare facility with his childcare providers. You owe it to your child to help make the center the best it can be for him.
Beautification Day. Schedule a few hours on a Saturday morning for a group of parents to come into the center and give it a really thorough spring cleaning where you tackle involved chores like painting walls, repairing bookcases, decorating classrooms, scrubbing cubbies.
Fundraising. You can support your center?s fundraising efforts by asking for goods, services or monetary donations. Ask friends and family to partake in fundraising auction events with you ? spirited bidding in a live auction is a lively way to spend a Saturday evening with friends while benefiting a good cause.
Participation. Spending an hour or two in the classroom a week reading stories, engaging in dramatic play or just lending a helping hand are all time well spent and greatly appreciated by the daycare center.
If your schedule is too tight to accommodate volunteering at school, think creatively about other ways you can contribute ? do you have a skill, talent or connection that can potential benefit the school in some way. It may be an activity that seems inconsequential in your normal course of business but would be invaluable to your daycare center.
Here are some examples to get you started:
Investment Banking. Most centers have an emergency fund they must keep for unexpected facility maintenance or other unplanned expenses. Suggest the best short term investment vehicles for them.
Tax Accountant. Offer to review their current tax preparation forms or evaluate their tax planning process.
Medical Expertise. Conduct a 30 minute seminar or write a column in the newsletter about common childhood ailments, healthy eating or sleeping practices.
Educational Background. Suggest weekend learning activities or offer to conduct a 30 minute special event for one of the older classrooms.
Music. Entertain the kids with an impromptu concert or offer to entertain at the center?s annual fundraising event.
Legal. Offer to review contracts or agreements the school is considering. Offer to review the current application portfolio and identify policies or additional waivers or agreements that should be included.
Sales. Create a bonus plan for the teaching staff that takes into account length of employment and special recognitions.
Marketing. Review the centers brochures, ads and marketing plans. Make recommendations for how to best sell the centers services, help develop creative materials and negotiate print rates with vendors.
Facilities. Offer to inspect the daycare facilities and make maintenance repairs or negotiate with preferred vendors for discounted rates.
Road Trip! Make It Fun For Your Toddler
If you had to spend 4 or 5 hours in a snug car seat with even snugger straps and nothing to do, you might not be a huge road trip fan either. Road trips are getting more fun for the younger set as portable and built-in DVD players become more and more common, but sometimes even watching videos gets old.
Creating a Memorable Travel Journal Using A Stuffed Animal
You may remember The Red Couch Project, a book by artists Kevin Clarke and William Least Heat published in the 1980s documenting the travels of a red velvet couch across America.
Taking Home Souvenirs, Not Junk
Gift shops are a kid magnet and often a trip highlight! Do you cringe at the sight inexpensive trinkets and novelty items that will be lost or broken in the span of hours? Plan your souvenir strategy early and help your child assemble a collection that is unique and will last for years to come, preserving the memories of your travels together.
First, come up with a theme. What type of souvenir is fairly common at most tourist locations and has the makings for a great collection? If you set your child on a treasure hunt for specific souvenirs with some sort of common ground, they will be able to tell a story or make an easily displayed collection.
We?ve collected embroidered patches from the places we?ve visited with our child and sewn them onto a backpack he takes along on trips, adapting the idea from old suitcases with stickers from exotic locations.
Here are some more ideas for starting your child?s souvenir collection:
Postcards. Have your child write himself a note and mail it back home. You can assemble it like a diary when you return from your travels.
Key Chains. They can be collected and put on backpacks or hung on a strip hanging from the wall.
Magnets. You can put them on the refrigerator at home or make a magnetic board to display the collection in your child?s bedroom.
Snowglobes or Music Boxes featuring scenes from your travel location.
Crazy sunglasses or hats. They could be relevant to your travel destination or just wacky.
Holiday ornaments. Each holiday, you can recount stories about travels with your children and have a great starter set of special ornaments when your child is grown so he can share his travel memories with his children.
Surprise ? Public School Class Size Doesnt Matter Very Much
School authorities often complain that classes are too large. They claim that teachers can?t be expected to give their students the individual attention they need if there are too many students in the class. On the surface, this excuse seems to have some merit. Common sense tells us that in smaller classes, teachers can give more time and attention to each student.
Parents ? The No Child Left Behind Law Wont Do Much For Your Child
Past experience with federal education programs predicts that the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act will also fail parents whose children are doing poorly in school. The federal government has spent over $120 billion on Title 1 programs for low-income students since 1965. Yet the literacy rates for these children today are appalling, and the achievement gap between low-income children and their peers has not closed.
Homeschooling ? Can I Do It?
Many parents would like to homeschool their children but are afraid they don?t have the training or ability to be their children?s teacher. This is certainly understandable, because most parents never had any formal training to be a teacher. However, most parents don?t have to worry about this issue.
Homeschooling ? Is It Worth It?
Suppose that you rearrange your life to homeschool your child and the experiment fails? You may feel that you?ve disrupted your life and wasted a year of your child?s time. Your child may even be kept back a grade by the local public school.
Public-School True Believers with a Mission
One reason public schools get away with educational failure, year after year, is because they are run by school officials who passionately believe in what they are doing. As the great English writer C. S. Lewis wrote, ?Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.?
Water Hazards For Young Children
Unfortunately each year many young children drown in swimming pools, other bodies of water, and standing water around the home area. Children must be watched by an adult at all times when in or near water. Children are very inquisitive and love to get themselves into trouble. They love to get there little frail bodies into buckets, bathtubs and such items. Did you know children may drown in an inch or 2 of water!
How Do I Get My Child to Read?
Well first off, please to don?t institute the ½ hour of mandatory reading that so many schools and parents are so keen on these days. You want to encourage a life-long love of reading and frankly you would be much more likely to succeed by banning reading in your house then by turning reading into yet another chore that needs to be done.
Secondly, you want to make sure that your child doesn?t have some learning disability that makes reading hard and uncomfortable. Even a child who makes good grades can have some undetected condition that makes reading difficult. Check with your child?s teacher and/or have him tested if necessary. If there is a learning disability present, experts can help your child with strategies that will make reading easier and more enjoyable.
The best time to instill a love of reading in your child is before they can read. Read to them at bed time. Please don?t play a bedtime video. If you are too busy to read to your child then you can play a book on tape. Just make sure that reading is part of a bedtime ritual that is comfortable and pleasant.
The number one way to instill a love of reading in your child is to be an avid reader yourself. When your little girl comes to you wanting to play Barbies, you can say ?One moment sweetie, I want to finish this chapter?. You will be showing her by example that reading is even more fun than Barbies! If you hate to read then have yourself tested for a disability. Again you will be demonstrating how important reading is. Also think about instituting a ?quiet? time during the day when you read and must not be disturbed. It would be a perfect time for them to read as well. Talk about books while eating dinner.
You also need to make sure that there are plenty of books in the house. The library is great but you must also own books. They need to be available. Having no money is no excuse. There are plenty of used bookstores and flea markets with cheap books for sale. Libraries often sell books and sometimes even give them away. When I started an on-line used book store, I was immediately inundated with truckloads of books from friends who needed to clear out. Just let people know you want books and they will start to appear. Believe me! Make sure there is a wide variety of subjects and titles. You never know what will spark your child?s interest.
Strategies to Help Boost Your Childs Self Esteem
Self esteem in an important quality for all children to have. As parents, you can help to boost your child's self esteem by following the steps below:
Nanny 911 and Disciplining Your Child
Nanny 911 Interview with Montel Williams
Pick Your Fights With Your Teenager Wisely
I know as a single parent or even with 2 parents, it is hard raising a teenage girl or a boy.
Child Discipline - Be Consistent With Your Child
The biggest complaint you hear from parents about their children is "they don't listen to me and I have tried everything"
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