Keep the clutter out of baby’s crib! And we are not only talking infants here. From 2002-2004, 241 children under age 5 died in nursery incidents - 40% attributable to beddings and toys. Beware of the bath too - during that period 36 deaths were attributed to bath seats. There are about 65,000 nursery product related accidents per year. Of course accidents do happen, just be aware to try to prevent them if at all possible.

Spanking leads to sexual deviancy? This is a survey that is probably going to get conversations going. Spanking your child. This often ends up in the “hot topics” area. There is a survey out that those who are in the “no spanking” camp may use as a reason. The survey says that children who were spanked in childhood will grow up to be more aggressive and could have sexual issues. What sexual issues are they referring to?

One stat: the 25 percent of university students who ranked highest on a corporal punishment scale insisted on sex without a condom, compared with the 12.5 percent of university students who scored lowest on the scale. Another: 75 percent of college students who’d been spanked a lot said they were sexually aroused by masochistic sex, compared with 40 percent of students who were never spanked.

Those in the “spanking is OK” camp say that in proper circumstances and done properly, it can be effective without any damaging effects. This is surely one of those things that will always be controversial and an individual parenting decision.

This baby is an amazing survivor! A pregnant woman in India was riding on the train. She went to the bathroom, started labor (prematurely) and passed out. The baby was born into the toilet and slipped out onto the train tracks. (For those who aren’t frequent train travelers, it is often the case that toilet waste is disposed that way.)

The family, worried she was gone a while, went to find her. When they realized what had happened, the pulled the emergency button, and a search was on for the baby somewhere along the tracks. Nearly 2 hours later, they found the infant on the tracks - alive! It was taken to the hospital and is under care and it is considered a miracle.

It is possible to be too clean. With the scare of the “superbugs” many parents are being more cautious regarding their children’s cleanliness. This article gives some interesting hints such as:

- It is not only about being clean. Good nutrition, plenty of sleep and staying warm and dry on winter days also helps keep the sickies away. So bundle up and bring on the chicken soup!

- Don’t fall victim to all the antibacterial products on the market. They are more pricey, and there is no evidence to prove that they actually are effective in preventing bacteria.

The article also gives a list of 10 times a day it is good to wash childrens hands. I have to admit - I struggle to get my own kids to wash their hands one or twice a day!

Do people really research this stuff? Researchers have been studying insects to try to prove that attractive males have attractive babies. They hope to make a correlation with human men and their offspring. Seriously? I would like to be a researcher who gets to decide who is attractive or not. Where can I sign up?

One crazy nun. A sister in Detroit got fed up with her students’ potty mouths and she decided to do something about it. She had all of her 5th to 8th graders stay after mass and she explained her no-tolerance swearing policy. And as a shock to the kids, she rattled off a list of all words that are banned. This was not only cuss words - she also banned words like stupid and boring. Apparently it worked. So far.

Last week my son was “sentenced” to two days out of swimming practice. To him it felt like someone has died. I still had to go to swimming practice with my older son so he got to watch all his friends getting in the pool. He also had to explain why he wasn’t with them. It has something to do with following instructions. I watched from outside and stayed out of the situation because when my son is in the water he is no longer my son; he is property of the instructor and his team.

When he was all crappy and crying, a mother came to me and said: “Oh my, you should give him some good discipline. My kids will not do something like that. They know that they must respect their instructor. My kids are very good kids. You should try to control him.” At this point I was speechless and mad. How can anybody say something like that? My son is seven years old and a very sincere and outgoing kid. He will speak whatever is on his mind and people love to spend time with him. He may need some discipline and that is fine with me. What child doesn’t need discipline? But to accused him of being disrespectful (he was not ) is something that simply annoys me.

Discipline can be a very challenging milestone for every parent. Whatever the age of your child, it’s important to be consistent when it comes to discipline. Rules and consequences have to be established from the beginning so kids will know what to expect. Parents should know that giving discipline to your kids is giving them the ability to guide themselves to become better people.

We also need to understand that we can’t label kids. We tend to see a child and just figure out how he is going to react to a situation. “If he treats his mother like he’ll probably end up in jail.” Whether we like it or not, parents tend to compare kids’ behavior. If some discipline strategy works for a child it does not mean it will work with the other. According to About.com:

Child experts indicate that there are some common basics of effective discipline. Here are techniques to try:

1. Consistency is the Key- Since everyone has a different parenting/caregiver style, it’s not practical to say all discipline should be consistent all the time. Do try, however, to instill consistent rules, approaches, and even goals and rewards each day. Kids can find change or inconsistencies confusing, and may test limits or boundaries to see how far they can go with different adults.
2. Seek Out the “why”of Misbehavior- If you take time to seek out the “why” to the behavior rather than just the action itself, you might be closer to figuring out your child’s problem (at least this one).
3. Avoid Power Battles - Choose your battles very carefully, but once you’ve picked a battle then a parent/adult MUST win. Always. Only address those issues that are truly important (safety is always a key battle) and let some things go. If possible, offer choices while still setting reasonable limits. But if an issue is important, experts indicate it’s vital that a parent not cave and give in to a child, even “just this once.” If you do this, then every time this issue comes up again, your child will know that you might change your mind.
4. Emphasize and Praise Good Behavior - If the behavior won’t cause harm, then an effective disciplinary approach often involves praising good behavior and rewarding it through hugs, high-fives or special activities (like a trip to the park), while ignoring bad behavior. This is easier said than done, but a child will learn that good actions result in more positive attention and praise while bad behavior gains her nothing.
5. Keep Your Cool- Kids often enjoy seeing a rise out of an adult; blowing your top can be interesting to watch and kids sometimes see your loss of control as a victory for them. Keep calm and in control, and if necessary, tell your child you’re taking a brief “time out” to assess the situation and appropriate consequence before taking action. Kids will often take advantage of a frazzled, mad, or emotional adult; don’t give them this opportunity. If you do mess up, learn from the experience, and take another measure to keep yourself calm, cool and collected the next time (and there will be one!).
6. Seek Out Discipline Supporters - When someone else is watching your child, be sure to communicate discipline style and request the caregiver adopt a similar fashion. Likewise, if you do not believe in a certain approach (like spanking or a time-out chair), be sure to indicate that to a babysitter or early education teacher as well. If checking out a new day care or pre-school, take time to ask about disciplinary approach. Many parents find that if they match their approach to what methods are used at a child’s care setting, the results become more effective. The reason may be that kids respond to discipline tactics that are used with their peers.

My son is back in the pool. The most precious thing about childhood is that most of the time kids simply forget about bad moments. Kids have the ability to let it go and most times they just don’t judge people. My son smiled at everyone (even the mother that made the comments) and was a happy kid in the water.

As for me, I’m trying to learn from him.

Posted by Momcrazyforkids.

Tired of the kids hindering your every effort to stay on top of housework? Miss having any time at the end of the day for you?

Try a few of these rules from Parenting.com’s Barbara Rowley:

1. If I’m working, you’re working too - or you can’t be in the room with me. Your kid wants to be where you are, and given the choices above (help or go play elsewhere), he’s probably going to choose to try to help you. Granted, kids don’t do things the way you do, but at least if he’s trying to be useful, he’s not actively undoing your progress.

2. I get off of “mommy duty” at 8pm. Rowley says that when she enacted this rule, I acted as if it were out of my hands. Sort of like Cinderella and midnight. Suddenly, my 6-year-old (and my husband) developed a new consciousness of time. My daughter actually rushed to get ready for bed just after dinner so that we could have lots of books and time together before I was “off.” My husband, realizing that if things dragged past 8 he’d have to face putting both girls to sleep himself, became more helpful. Double score!

3. “You get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit.” This rule sounds silly, but the catchy rhythm and the sheer “that’s that” quality of it means kids listen. I’ll admit to a certain amount of skepticism about it, but it works for Rowley’s kids.

Check out these and other mom-tested rules at Parenting.com.

Posted by Sunshining.

The topic of discipline has been on my mind a lot lately. Why so? I have a recently minted three-year-old, and he’s morphed from my darling toddler into Mr. Biggy Pants. He’s rude, bossy, and a tyrant with his younger brother. He hits me when I insist that he use the potty before we leave on a walk. He throws dirt at me; when I scold him, he laughs and does it again. He throws his monster truck at the dining room table repeatedly, singing “Baaaaad to the Booooone!”, and when I come after him to confiscate Grave Digger, he screams, laughs and throws it at his brother.

And just when I think I can’t stand it any more, he runs at me asking if he can “help wif making dinna”, or he fetches his brother’s socks when he sees I’ve forgotten them, or he announces from the carriage, “This is a fine wide you’re givin’ us, Mommy.”

It’s this balance of sweet and crazy-making behavior that helps me remember that this is what three-year-olds do: They test limits, try on their independence, and act on “What if?” impulses, just by their nature. And it’s my job to take all this and help shape my son’s experiences so that he lands in a good place - with plenty of zest for life, sure, but kept in healthy check by self-discipline, respect for the rights of others, and an appreciation for consequences.

I feel like there’s nothing over at the SheKnows page on positive discipline that I haven’t read before, many times, but I’m that kind of student: I need plenty of review. So I was glad to land on it, particularly as this entry is on alternatives to spanking. We are a no-spank family, but every so often, in the heat of the moment, I have to remind myself of that fact, through gritted teeth.

Here are their tips on discipline:

1. Be a positive role model. Exhibit the behavior you are asking for from your child. I need to work on this. I have actually caught myself screaming, “HEY! THAT’S TOO LOUD!” at my son. Sort of a mixed message there.

2. Set reasonable rules and consequences and make sure your kids understand them ahead of time. I need to work on this also. I find I’m always re-explaining on the fly that hitting is wrong, or why grabbing toys is not allowed. Maybe I need a few simple rules and consequences that we review before playing, such as “You must take turns with your brother or I’ll put the monster trucks up high for the day.”

3. Encourage and reward good behavior. The term “reward” made me flinch, but actually, they really mean offer verbal praise, and only occasional treats. Other suggestions for rewards include increased responsibilities and privileges, which are great ideas.

For very stressful times:

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Is there anything more grating than the sound of awhiny child? If so, I really don’t ever want to hear it. It’s no wonder kids do it, however. It works.  It immediately gets your attention attention, like an arrow piercing your brain. My older son rarely whines, but boy, my one-year-old has got it down.

Parenting has some tips on taking control of whining before it makes you hate your life. The advice varies by age, of course.

In toddlers, whining is an evolved form of the infant whimper. It’s a natural response, and a young child is likely to fall into this voice when he’s overwhelmed and doesn’t have an adequate vocabulary to ask for what he wants. Being tired or hungry can also trigger the whine.  Some ideas for minimizing the whine include taking a few minutes to give your child extra attention, and a snack if hunger is a likely issue.  It can also be fun to tease your older toddler by imitating his whining, asking “Whyyyyyy are you taaaalkingg like thaaaaaat?” He’ll get a better idea of how he sounds, and he may also laugh, which may break the mood that was causing the whine in the first place.

Preschoolers may whine from frustration, especially if they have multiple big changes taking place in their lives - potty training, preschool, a new sibling, new activities and responsibilities. With this age group, you can have even more fun with breaking the whining habit.  One mom hands her child a bowl when she wines and asks her to “pour out” her wine and return with her regular voice.  Or you might try whispering an answer to your whiney child so that she has to quiet down - and drop the whine - to hear you.

For older preschoolers, you might have a rule that you don’t hear them when they whine.  When your four-year-old starts in, ignore her, pointedly, until she gets the message that she needs to speak in her regular voice. Consistency is key! And it’s smart to thank your child for switching to her proper voice as a way of reinforcing the behavior you want.

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We’ve gotten religion recently over on the boards. That is, there’s been much discussion just lately about why we do or do not currently participate in organized religion. So it was with particular interest that I spotted this article: Apparently, a study out of Mississippi State University concludes that children whose parents are religious have better social skills, self-control, and approaches to learning than their non-religious peers.

Sociologist John Bartkowski and his team interviewed the parents and teachers of more than 16,000 children, most of them first-graders, and asked them to evaluate “how much self control they believed the kids had, how often they exhibited poor or unhappy behavior and how well they respected and worked with their peers.” The researchers also asked the parents how often they attended worship services, discussed religion with their kids, and argued about religion in their homes.

The kids whose parents regularly attended religious services - especially when both parents did so frequently - and talked with their kids about religion were rated by both parents and teachers as having better self-control, social skills and approaches to learning than kids with non-religious parents.

But when parents argued frequently about religion, the children were more likely to have problems. Religion can hurt if faith is a source of conflict or tension in the family,� Bartkowski noted.

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“If you behave while we are in the store I will take you for lunch when we are done.”

Does that sound familiar? Definitely something I do with my kids, but experts are warning that ‘bribing’ our kids may not be a good idea.

Bribing. I really never thought about it that way. Typically, I just want to get things done in the easiest and least stressful way possible, and I never really thought I was doing something bad for my kids.

Marcy Safyer, the director of the Adelphi University Institute for Parenting says:

I think that reward systems have a time and a place and work really well to help develop capacities � if we need them to go above and beyond. But what often gets lost for people is being able to figure out how to communicate to their kids that doing the thing is rewarding enough. Feeling rested in the morning, for instance, could be seen as the reward for not getting up at night. Instead, parents are paying their kids to get good grades; they pay their kids to go to sleep, pay their kids to be toilet trained.

I have to admit, telling my kids they are going to feel nice and rested if they stay in bed is NOT going to make a difference. She does also suggest using a bedtime chart with stars and making a huge deal as the chart fills up. Now I can see that working.

Just as the punishment should fit the crime, they are saying the reward should be fitting of the behavior, and that the “because I said so” is OK.

I do sometimes wonder if “material things” are becoming expected and if they mean anything to my children. And while I am not a big offender of bribing my kids, I certainly am guilty of it. This is something I am going to take a hard look at.

Posted by Mally

That’s the law California Assemblywoman Sally Lieber is trying to get on the books.

Hm.  Is this a good idea?  Should we really start legislating the way we as parents, parent?  And how would a law like this be enforced anyway?

According to a survey of 500 adults in the Bay Area, 57 percent are opposed to the bill, while only 23 percent support a law make spanking illegal.  And I’d venture to bet none of these people condone child abuse.

If the goal of a law like this is to reduce deaths from infant and child abuse, is it realistic to think a law is going to do it?  Perhaps providing parents with parenting classes, giving them tools to deal with stressful situations in the heat of the moment would help.  But of course Ms. Lieber, who has no children of her own, isn’t suggesting anything like that.

The chances of a bill like this actually becoming law are slim, which I for one say is a good thing.  States need to focus their efforts on stopping real child abusers, and stop wasting their time and our money making ridiculous laws that simply spell out what anyone with an ounce of common sense already knows. 

God knows we don’t need one more thing to add to our parental guilt.

Posted by Pager12.

(via Salon.)

Note to self: Yelling doesn’t work:  A study published in the journal Clinical Pediatrics finds that about a third of all parents surveyed believe that their approach to discipline is not particularly effective.  In addition, 38% noted that they use the same discipline techniques their parents did.  Interesting note:  There was an inverse relationship between self-report of using yelling at children and perceived effectiveness of discipline.

Baby for Gish:  Annabeth Gish (of Showtime’s Brotherhood) and her husband, a martial arts expert, welcomed their first child, a boy, Cash Alexander, this past Friday. 

Adoption News:  Assistant Secretary of Consular Affairs Maura Harty is warning Guatemalan officials that they must do a better job regulating adoption procedures or the U.S. government will stop issuing visas to Americans for Guatemalan babies they hope to adopt.   Under the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoptions, set to be ratified later this year, governments must take measures to make sure that babies put up for international adoptions are not stolen or bought.